25. Some practitioners have advised the uniting bandage used in cases of transverse wounds, which is formed, as is well known, of two small rollers or strips placed in the longitudinal direction of the limb, one of them having holes in it, to which the divisions of the other are fastened. Both of these are first secured by circular turns; being then drawn in opposite directions so as to meet, they draw the parts on which they are applied in the same directions. But the action of this bandage is confined to the integuments, and would have of course but a feeble influence on the fragments beneath. It is also attended with this further inconvenience, that by wrinkling the integuments, and throwing them into folds, it might press them down between the fragments, and thus prevent their contact. Besides, it is liable to most of the objections urged against the preceding one. 26. This view of the means employed by different practitioners, to counteract the causes of displacement in this fracture, are sufficient to convince us, that the difficulties hitherto experienced in the treatment of it, have arisen from the feebleness of the former, and the strength of the latter. So great indeed have been these difficulties, that some authors, conceiving a reunion impossible, have, in conformity to such an opinion, though contrary to all the rules and principles of the profession, advised us to abandon the patient to himself. But I have already exposed the fallacy of that opinion, respecting the want of a healing power in the rotula (12), an opinion which, if generally adopted, would give rise to consequences of the most serious nature. In the present case, as in all other fractures, the contact of the fragments ought to be the chief object of the surgeon’s efforts. 27. But ought this contact to be perfect and exact? Several authors, particularly Bell, have conceived, that the motions of the limb can be performed as well with a slight separation of the fragments. Pott even declares that such a separation will enable the patient, after his recovery, to walk with more ease. Flajani advances the same opinion in a dissertation on the subject. From this doctrine arose a new mode of treatment, which consisted in not suffering the fragments to be at rest. They were accordingly, during the cure, put frequently in motion, the more effectually to prevent an anchylosis, which is sometimes the consequence of this fracture. 28. But, on the one hand, it is difficult to conceive, on what this opinion of these authors can be founded; while, on the other, reason declares, in the plainest and most forcible terms, that the more the state of a bone, after it has been broken, differs from its natural state, the less free will be the exercise of its functions, and, that the perfection of the treatment of fractures consists, in leaving behind it no vestige of the accident.