Dear Collegues

Throttling chickens and game birds is done by gripping the proximal neck / shoulders with one hand (usually the left in right handed people) and extending and twisting the distal neck.....effectively causing a dislocation of the cervical spine and massive cord shock.  You don't actually "choke the chicken" (that is actually a collequal term for something done in the privacy of their own homes (I hope) by consenting adults)

Difficult therefore to understand how this action would damage the ulnar collateral ligaments of the thumb

In musket days you still had to cock the hammer so that it would be released to strike the flint and drop sparks into the tray holding the ignition powder for the charge.  Sparks that fell into the ignition tray and ignited but failed to set off the main charge gave rise to the expression "a flash in the pan"

The recoil of a poorly held shotgun butt can certainly do damage to the thumb.

Items of useless info number 1001!


Jim Kennedy

Country bumkin, and responsible for rearing 20,000 broiler chickens every 8 weeks as a lad growing up on the family farm.....although I didnt actually lay the eggs myself you understand)

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From:  P S Buttar[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:  04 January 1998 10:29
To:  [log in to unmask]
Subject:  Re: gamekeeper's thumb

Iain wrote:

>Hmmm, Adrian has just mailed me to say that it's due
>  to pulling back on the "hammers" of a shotgun with the
>  thumb. Could be. Shows how much I know because I've
>  never even held a shotgun. So, which is it? Wringing
>  the necks of birds or killing the buggers with a
>  shorgun? The most work my thumb gets these days is trying
>  to open the cellophane on CDs!
>
>"CD purchaser's thumb"

Before I decided that GP was an easier life than orthopaedic surgery (shows
how dumb you can be), I remember a heated debate on this subject, with the
consultant suggesting that it was due to cocking a shotgun hammer, while his
very academic registrar retaliated by finding a reference to it that
predated the advent of percussion caps in shotgun cartridges.

Still, I wouldn't necessarily believe what an orthopod says...

Prit




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