Such are the extent and importance of Desault’s improvements in some branches of practical surgery, as to constitute a new epoch in the history of the profession. His different forms of apparatus for fractures and luxations are certainly more rational in their construction, and more efficacious in their action, than those of any other writer. But their excellence does not arise from these circumstances alone. Their cheapness and simplicity, taken in conjunction with the ease and quickness with which they may be every where made and applied, greatly enhance their value, particularly to practitioners in the country. If they be not already at hand, they can be easily prepared by the surgeon or his assistants, without any material loss of time. The sufferings of the patient, therefore, whatever may be the form of fracture or luxation under which he labours, need never be prolonged, by any delay in obtaining the necessary apparatus. It is thus that the means and processes of every art become simple and easy, in proportion as the art itself approaches perfection: and thus that the truly great artist is known, not by the multiplicity and the complex nature of his forms of apparatus, but by the numerous ends which he accomplishes by means the most simple and easy of construction. Several French practitioners, in projecting improvements on the forms of apparatus of Desault, have evidently rendered them more complex, more expensive, and therefore more difficult to be constructed or procured, without adding in the smallest degree to the efficacy of their action. This is particularly the case with respect to Boyer, in his attempt to substitute a new apparatus for a fractured clavicle, in place of that invented by Desault. The latter can be constructed in a very few minutes by the surgeon or one of his assistants, without any expense, whereas the former must be made by a workman employed for the purpose, and is necessarily attended with both cost and delay. Nor is it always practicable, particularly in the country, to procure a workman capable of making this apparatus. But this is not all. On Desault’s plan, the same apparatus for a fractured clavicle will fit, and may be applied to, persons of different sizes and figures; whereas, on the plan of Boyer, each patient must have an apparatus constructed particularly for himself. No practitioner, therefore, can hesitate a moment in deciding to which of these two forms of apparatus the preference is due.