po ESSAYS AND OBSERVATIOKS 



ken, by a ftrift inquiry into circumftancesj 

 to fatisfy all prefent, that the bone was not 

 broken, but really and fairly diflocated. 

 There is no reafoning againft fadls : the 

 toes and knee were turned outwards, the 

 difabled limb was longer than the found, 

 the hip-joint utterly inflexible, and the round 

 large head of the bone lay obvious to the 

 light and touch in the groin. 



The next inquiry was, how this difloca- 

 tion fhould be reduced. All were called to 

 confultation ; not one of the Phyficians of 

 Surgeons had ever feen the cafe before. 

 Some of the principal books of modern fur- 

 gery were looked into j but one and all de- 

 fcribed the reduction, and recommended 

 extenfion in fuch a general, languid, hear- 

 fay, manner, that it was plain they were as 

 unpradifed in the cafe, as the Gentlemen 

 prefent: nor was any better fuccefs to be 

 expeded from Galen s * method of reducing 



a 



* Vid. Gal. in librum Hipp, de artic. commentarior. 

 lib. 4. aph. 4Z. 



And indeed the antients feem to have been acquainted 

 tvith luxations of the hip-joint only in children, or diftem- 

 pered bodies; unlefs we fliall except Pau/ut jEgineta, 



whofe 



