Note (20) — BOOK VIII.

20. Must be applied with that part, &c.) This is according to Linden’s edition.—None of the more ancient seem to give the true reading of this whole passage taken together, but some of them afford hints. Instead of Acutæ ossis prominentis cuspidi, Pinzi has Recte se habendi capiti; others Recte se habenti capiti. Upon the whole I think Morgagni’s[ JV ] reflections upon this passage extremely probable; our author had before ordered a sharp point of a fragment to be either cut off or filed down and smoothed: he is now considering how the fragment itself is to be replaced. If we read it thus, the sense seems to be pretty clear: Vulsella, quali fabri utuntur, injicienda est capiti ossis recte habenti, ab ea parte, qua sima est, &c. that is, ‘A workman’s vulsella should be applied with that part, which turns inward, to the sound end of the bone, that by its convex part the prominent bone may be thrust into its place.’