White's truss pamphlet.

Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: White's truss pamphlet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    uated perfectly by the set screw in the end of the spring, so that by simply turning one screw you can change from the weakest to the most poiverful Truss, at pleasure. None of these points can be reached by the steel spring hoop ; they are so much, be the same more or less. Neither the patient nor the surgeon can tell, at first fitting a Truss, how much or how little power is necessary, and so it is mere luck and chance if you get a fit at all. Soon the patient finds either that his Truss is murdering him, or that it is too weak to hold his rupture. In either case, it is a total fail- ure. He must throw it away and try again. So thousands of Trusses are found cast aside, and the patients, discouraged, give up in despair. But my Truss is perfectly under the control of the patient him- self, and if he is going into heavy lifting he can turn on power, or if he is going on a pleasure trip it will not lessen his pleasure to turn off a few pounds of pressure from his Truss. No other Truss can be thus controlled! 2. I claim for my Truss an absolute combined in- ward and upward motion and pressure. My pad is hung on a swivel, and, therefore, works on a circle. The power of the back-action spring is applied over a knuckle which works the pad inward and upward at the same time. The power is so reserved over the stirrup that the pad is thrown up and in, so as per- fectly to follow any possible action of the body. This combined inward and upward motion has been the felt and acknowledged lack in the minds of all whf