The lower extremity of the arm being then pressed towards the body,
the upper end is separated from it, and becomes, with regard to the
clavicle, what the efforts of an assistant who makes the extension, in
a fracture of the leg, are to the foot of the patient.
The mode of reduction being established, it was necessary, in the next
place, to invent a bandage, calculated to retain the broken ends of
the bone in contact. Desault thought it practicable to unite these two
points of treatment, in the same process, that is to say, to reduce,
and at the same time to retain the fracture. Here the art is indebted
to him for an improvement, which, I will venture to say, carries it
near to perfection. To judge of this, it will be necessary only to
take a hasty survey of the different kinds of apparatus proposed by
different writers.
§ VII.