Gamekeeper's Thumb

By Stuart M. Smith, MD and B. James McCallum, MD

The name has been associated both with Scottish fowl-hunters and English gamekeepers. It always refers to a chronic dislocation of the joint where the thumb meets the wrist. It could be sustained in several ways.

For the Scots, it was the result of carrying game draped over their shoulder, suspended from a leather throng attached to their thumb. English gamekeepers more often sustained the injury because by killing rabbits with a forceful blow from their thumb to the back of the animals' necks.

By either mechanism, it resulted in a weakened ability to hold objects, decreased thumb stability (catching the thumb in objects, etc.), local swelling and pain.

Those wascally wabbits.

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