Note 199 — PART II. OF DISEASES. (continued 9)

Various pieces of machinery have been contrived for counteracting the force of the muscles, and retaining the fragments of broken bones; but as descriptions of these without drawings would be of little use, I shall refer the reader to a cheap and useful performance on the nature and cure of fractures, lately published by my ingenious friend Mr. Aitken, surgeon in Edinburgh; wherein that gentleman has not only given an account of the machines recommended in fractures by former authors, but has likewise added several improvements of his own, which are peculiarly useful in compound fractures, and in cases where patients with broken bones are obliged to be transported from one place to another.