Step 3. The limb is next placed in the cradle formed for it, to the lower end of which the foot-piece is tied securely; the ropes are rove through the pulleys and tightened till the limb swings easily. The point of attachment of the ropes must not be just above the limb, but beyond it, that the leg may be drawn away from the body along its own axis. The weight of the body makes counter-extension sufficient to remove all shortening in a few days. The relief from the constraint attending the absolute immobility of the long splint, renders this apparatus a particularly easy one for the patient; and union is found to take place without any shortening of the limb. Where there is no wound, the limb and frame may be kept together by a roller bandage carried round them from the toes to the knee, after the limb has been adjusted in the splint. =Continuous Extension in the straight position= is employed for fractures of the femur and in hip-disease. It is procured as follows. A stirrup is fastened to the leg in the way described at page 76; to this a cord and weight are attached below the sole of the foot, and passed over a pulley fixed to a tripod frame (fig. 54), or any convenient object below the bed, in a line with the axis of the limb. The weight should balance the contraction of the muscles, and usually varies between 2 and 6 lbs. A perineal band fastened behind the patient’s head keeps the body from following the limb. The weight may be a common scale weight, or a bag with a hole at the bottom closed by a string, and filled with shot or sand, or a can with a tap at the bottom filled with water: these arrangements allow increase or lessening of the weight, without slackening the cord and moving the limb. This apparatus requires no bandages, which are so difficult to keep clean in children, and exerts a very even and continuous strain on the limb. [Illustration: Fig. 54.—Fracture of the femur. Extension by weight and pulley.] The perineal band may be often dispensed with, by laying the patient on a flat mattress and raising the foot of the bedstead a few inches higher than the head; the body then sinks towards the head of the bed and resists the extension of the leg. =Starch Bandage.=—The following mode of applying the starch bandage and pasteboard splints may be used in all varieties of fracture; the length of the splints and the number of joints that should be included depend on the bone that is broken. Some surgeons apply the starch apparatus immediately after the fracture has happened, others wait until partial union is procured and the irritability of the muscles has subsided. _Apparatus._—1. Sheets of bookbinder’s millboard. 2. Rollers suitable for the size of the limb. 3. Cotton wool. 4. A basin of freshly scalded starch. 5. A long strip of plaster, to reach as high as the bandage will extend up the limb. 6. If the fracture be recent, a wooden splint will generally be necessary to keep up extension while the starch is drying.