A Note on the Incidence of Diabetes Mellitus in Fractures of the Hip *

It had been the impression of members of the Department of Orthopedics at Yale that diaibetes mellitus was found in cases of fractured femoral neck more frequently than in cases of intertrochanteric fractures of the femur. Should such an impression be borne out by fact, some significant feature of metabolism in relation to these fractures might be brought to light. It was speculated as to whether vascular disease, commonly associated with diabetes mellitus, might be involved in the localization of the fracture at the femoral neck. It was deemed advisable to review a series of 100 cases of each type of fracture of the hips (i.e., intracapsular and extracapsular) and to compare the incidence of diabetes mellitus in each series. It will be shown that diabetes mellitus occurs about as often in either type of fracture, and that the disease occurs in these fractures more often than the recorded incidence in the population as a whole.