"The one goes with the other, as shadow with light, and to no
therapeutic measure does this apply more surely than to the use of rest.
"Let us take the simplest case,--that which arises daily in the
treatment of joint-troubles or broken bones. We put the limb in splints,
and thus, for a time, check its power to move. The bone knits, or the
joint gets well; but the muscles waste, the skin dries, the nails may
for a time cease to grow, nutrition is brought down, as an arithmetician
would say, to its lowest terms, and when the bone or joint is well we
have a limb which is in a state of disease. As concerns broken bones,
the evil may be slight and easy of relief, if the surgeon will but
remember that when joints are put at rest too long they soon fall a prey
to a form of arthritis, which is the more apt to be severe the older the
patient is, and may be easily avoided by frequent motion of the joints,
which, to be healthful, exact a certain share of daily movement. If,
indeed, with perfect stillness of the fragments we could have the full
life of a limb in action, I suspect that the cure of the break might be
far more rapid.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78