Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake.

  • Sheldrake, Timothy.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    each size passes through his hands in tlie same manner, and are removed from him : they are then given to another, whose business it is to temper them, and in this state they are finally removed to the warehouse till wanted for use. The leather for coverings is cut out and prepared by journeymen sadlers and workmen of that description, and finally made by women kept at a distance from the house, and who are totally unknown to every other person in my service; complete assortments of the pads and springs for them are made and stored up in the same manner, so that I have constantly by me an assortment of all the parts of many hundred complete trusses, including every variation of size, strength, &c. that can possibly be required, and yet, not one of them can be completed wathout speciiic in- structions from myself. An assortment is finislied by putting all the parts toge- ther, by specific instructions from myself: these are kept ready for use; but when any one is wanted diiferent from those which are ready, reference must be made to me; upon learning those circumstances which are necessary respecting the patient and his disease, the parts that iare requisite to forma proper truss are selected, put together and finished by the proper workmen ; from this account it must be evident, that a set of workmen may be employed in •making parts of trusses for many years Avithout having made cue complete^ of course they cannot have learned, bt/ expa-ience, how to make one. With respect to the collars, and other instruments in general use, the same system is pursued; different parts are made to patterns by diiferent workmen, some in the home manufactory, and others in distant situations totally unknown to the rest; a large assortment of these parts is kept ready, are adapted to such other, and the essentiiii forms given by myself, and they are finished for use by a different set of w^orkmcn from those who did the former' parts. The third assortment is in a situation still different; it consists of the instruments which are used irrmy peculiar practice of curing distortions of the spine, and']eg;j, and feet of children: these instruments are formed from cor- rect designs made by myself, frojn the patients to whose ciuses they are peculiarly adapted ; tliese patients and their ymrticular defects are never known to any person in my ser- \*cc; the workmen who arc employed never knew for what, or for whom any instrument is intended, of course, they can gain