14. Our forms of apparatus are nothing but means of continuing, for a long time, that state of things, which extension and the process of conformation temporarily produce at the time of reduction. This principle, though generally acknowledged, was particularly neglected in such fractures, as that now under consideration, till the time of Petit, who made it the basis of his practice. Before him, there was a common inconvenience attached to every kind of bandage. The two bones being pressed against each other, by circular rollers applied externally, were thus drawn in that very direction, in which the action of the pronator muscles already tended to displace them; because, the form of the fore-arm being irregular, made these rollers act more powerfully on its lateral parts, where it is very convex, than either behind or before, where it is very flat. It is well known that bandages will make the greatest pressure on the most projecting parts of the limbs round which they are applied; so that, if the fore-arm be bound or pressed on behind and before with a force equal to one, it will sustain laterally, that is, on its sides or edges, a pressure equal to two. Hence results, not only a tendency in the radius to approach the ulna, but also, a want of resistance in the muscles situated on the posterior and anterior sides of the fore-arm. For these muscles being, from their flatness, less compressed than the bones, give way, and do not, by forcing themselves between them, oppose the approach of the bones to each other. 15. Such was the disadvantage of the apparatus of Hippocrates, consisting of one roller applied immediately on the skin, of a many-tailed bandage intended to retain this, and of four splints, applied on the seventh day, and secured by another roller. Such was also the inconvenience of several bandages, proposed after the time of Hippocrates, by different authors, who modified his without improving it, and who, in attempting to alter it, even added to its imperfections. Thus, the compresses with which the limb was first covered, previously to the application of the rollers, served only, by becoming wrinkled, to render the compression unequal, fatiguing, and even painful to the patient. In like manner the pasteboard, which many authors, particularly Duverney, have substituted for splints, and which a majority of practitioners employ, even at the present day, soon becoming softened by moisture, bends without resistance, becomes incapable of preventing a displacement, and has at least the inconvenience of being useless.[18] [18] On this point Desault is certainly mistaken. Paste-board, when of a proper thickness and well applied, makes an excellent splint for fractures of the fore-arm. It moulds itself to the form of the arm, sits easy, and retains the fracture extremely well. TRANS.