The surgical adjuster : for reducing dislocations, adjusting fractures, and maintaining coaptation / invented and patented by George O. Jarvis ; manufactured and sold by H. & G. Kellogg, Derby, Conn.

  • Jarvis, George O. (George Ogelvie), 1795-1875
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical adjuster : for reducing dislocations, adjusting fractures, and maintaining coaptation / invented and patented by George O. Jarvis ; manufactured and sold by H. & G. Kellogg, Derby, Conn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    wimti t paratus,—for example: The extending poinl being fixed to the foot—the counter-extending point being also fixed to the body at the perineum, and these again operating from the two extremities of a double inclined plane on which the limb isto rest, it must be apparent) i lierefore, to apply force to the two extremities of a limb thus situated, would tend just in proportion as the limb is flexed, to throw the fractured portions of bone out of a normal line, by converting each portion into a lever; and that too hy the very mode of applying the force : the soft parts serving as their fulcra. These remarks and principles apply, equally, to other fractures of the femur below the trochanter minor, and also to fractures of the leg, as they do to the one just named] yet not perhaps with all the ill consequences so fre- quently attending, as a careful examination of the ac- tion of the various muscles of the extremities will plain- ly show. To these defects in surgical practice mav be ascri- bed, mainly, the introduction of this instrument to the profession: and in perfecting its arrangements, the fol- lowing principles were adopted in its construction. First. Always to admit of the same free motion of the limb during the application of force, which thai limb possessed independently of the use of this instru- ment. Second. To allow the surgeon to apply any amount of force in the exact line of the shaft of the bone, on which he is to operate. Third. To have that force both gentle and steady, capable of being applied either rapidly or slowly, and retained permanently on the limb, or relaxed instant- ly, as the surgeon shall choose, while it is also, at all times, under his entire control.