Part 7
If, then, you see that the bones are properly adjusted by the first
dressings, and that there is no troublesome pruritus in the part,
nor any reason to suspect ulceration, you may allow the arm to remain
bandaged in the splints until after the lapse of more than twenty
days. The bones of the fore-arm generally get consolidated in thirty
days altogether; but there is nothing precise in this matter, for
one constitution differs from another, and one period of life from
another. When you remove the bandages, you must pour hot water on
the arm and bind it up again, but somewhat slacker, and with fewer
bandages than formerly: and again on the third day you undo the bandages,
and
[p. 178] bind it still more loosely, and with still fewer bandages. And
if, while the arm is bound up in the splints, you should at any time
suspect that the bones do not lie properly, or if anything about the
bandages annoys the patient, you should loose them at the middle of
the time, or a little earlier, and apply them again. A diet slightly
restricted will be sufficient in those cases in which there was no
external wound at first, or when the bone does not protrude; but one
should live rather sparingly until the tenth day, as being now deprived
of exercise; and tender articles of food should be used, such as moderately
loosen the bowels; but one should abstain altogether from flesh and
wine, and then by degrees resume a more nourishing diet. This diet.
may be laid down as a just rule in the treatment of fractures, both
as to how they should be treated, and what will be the results of
a proper plan of treatment; so that one may know, that if things do
not turn out thus, there has been some defect or excess in the treatment.
And in this simple plan of treatment it is necessary to attend also
to the following directions, which some physicians pay little attention
to, although, when improperly executed, they are capable of marring
the whole process of bandaging: for if both the bones be broken, or
the lower one only, and the patient who has got his arm bandaged keep
it slung in a shawl, and that the shawl is particularly loose at the
fracture, so that the arm is not properly suspended at this end or
that, in this case the bone must necessarily be found distorted upwards;
whereas, when both bones are thus broken, if the arm recline in the
shawl at the wrist and elbow, but the rest of it be not kept up, the
bone in this case will be distorted to the lower side. The greater
part of the arm and the wrist of the hand should therefore be equally
suspended in a broad soft shawl.
