Abstract
INTRAMEDULLARY internal fixation in the form of wires or bone grafts has been used for many years. Kuntscher in 1940 1 was apparently the first to use a so-called nail or bar in the shafts of long bones which traversed the length and width of the canal, thereby controlling angulation, lateral displacement and torque. The original Kuntscher nail is a V-shaped bar of V2A stainless steel of such a size as to be easily driven into the medullary canal of the particular bone under treatment. In devising the medullary nail, Kuntscher has produced a form of fixation for shaft fractures analogous to that supplied by the nails used so frequently and successfully in fractures of the femoral neck. His method therefore has the same advantages, i. e., no external fixation is necessary, the joints are kept mobile and the patient may be ambulatory in a relatively short time. In the
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