Several French practitioners, in projecting improvements on the forms of apparatus of Desault, have evidently rendered them more complex, more expensive, and therefore more difficult to be constructed or procured, without adding in the smallest degree to the efficacy of their action. This is particularly the case with respect to Boyer, in his attempt to substitute a new apparatus for a fractured clavicle, in place of that invented by Desault. The latter can be constructed in a very few minutes by the surgeon or one of his assistants, without any expense, whereas the former must be made by a workman employed for the purpose, and is necessarily attended with both cost and delay. Nor is it always practicable, particularly in the country, to procure a workman capable of making this apparatus. But this is not all. On Desault’s plan, the same apparatus for a fractured clavicle will fit, and may be applied to, persons of different sizes and figures; whereas, on the plan of Boyer, each patient must have an apparatus constructed particularly for himself. No practitioner, therefore, can hesitate a moment in deciding to which of these two forms of apparatus the preference is due.
Similar remarks may be made respecting Boyer’s apparatus for making permanent extension in oblique fractures of the os femoris. It is much more complex and difficult to be constructed than that of Desault. Nor does it possess a single advantage over it as improved by Drs. Physick and Hutchinson. In a word, the forms of apparatus of Boyer may answer well enough in hospitals and in cities, where the expence of such articles is not much regarded, and where workmen to make them can be readily procured. But, as the practitioner in the country is generally obliged to be himself the constructor of the forms of apparatus which he uses, and as he is not at all times prepared to meet heavy expenses, it is to those recommended and employed by Desault that he must necessarily have recourse.
With these remarks the translator submits to the good sense and candour of his countrymen the following sheets, as the offspring of some of his hours of leisure throughout the winter. He hopes that the appendix subjoined by himself will not be regarded as either an useless or an unpleasing addition. Every native of the United States, whose bosom glows as it ought, with that noblest of passions, the _amor patriæ_, will witness with pride and exultation the improvements that are daily making in the arts and sciences, by the industry and enterprize of his enlightened countrymen. Such a mind will enjoy in anticipation the glory of his country, at that period, when she will be able to reflect back, with increased splendour, the light which she has so long been borrowing from the countries of Europe.