150 APPENDIX. [No. III. 



fourth or fifth day after receiving the accident, and permitting them to be 

 moved to a situation more healthy and airy. The prevention of stiff joints, 

 and more speedy and final uniting of the bone, are advantages too great 

 to be passed over unmentioned. These benefits are likely to be enjoyed by 

 a greater number when the time required for the first application of the 

 splints is diminished, and the objection is removed of allowing the limb to 

 remain without bandages during the time required for drying the splints. 

 The tablets which I have described possess these additional advantages, 

 and with them superior cheapness is also subjoined. 



[Some years later (in 1846), after gutta-percha had come into use, he 

 invented a modification of the above tablets for fractures, and the following 

 article " On Gutta Percha Splints " was published in the London ' Medical 

 Gazette,' the same paper in which his first invention had been made known 

 to the world.] 



At the introductory address to the Medical Society of King's College, 

 I called attention to a novel surgical application of the new material called 

 gutta-percha. I have employed this substance, when rolled out into 

 tablets, for the formation of splints, similar to those which I described 

 as being made from the moulding tablets in the ' Medical Gazette ' and 

 ' Lancet ' for the year 1839. It has advantages over the moulding tablets 

 which I then described, inasmuch as tablets of this material, rolled to the 

 required thickness, are more easily moulded into the required form when 

 soaked in water. 



It has moreover advantages in its being impervious to and uninjured 

 by water, alcohol, ether, acid, and alkaline solutions, and therefore espe- 

 cially applicable to interrupted splints where an aperture is required to be 

 left for the application of these substances. It is not so good however as 

 the moulding tablet, inasmuch as it retains the perspiration, whilst the 

 moulding tablet transmits it. This difficulty may be overcome by punc- 

 turing numerous holes in the gutta-percha, or by lining it with a piece of 

 thin lint, which allows the perspiration to escape. If the perspiration is 

 retained, it irritates and excoriates the skin. I have employed this sub- 

 stance for fractured limbs and diseased joints. I have also found it of 

 great value after the division of tendons for contractions, and in cases 

 where pressure and counter-pressure are to be employed, as the force may 

 be then distributed over a large extent of the body. The moulding tablets 

 for fracture are, in my opinion, not so much employed as they deserve to 

 be; solely, I believe, because surgeons do not like the trouble of their 

 preparation. Under these circumstances, I hope that gutta-percha tablets 

 will lead to a far more extensive adoption of this form of splint. 



