CHAP. II. Of the signs of a Fracture.
* 1.1WE may know by evident signs that a bone is broken: the first whereof and most cer∣tain, is, when by handling the part which we suspect to be broken, we feel pieces of the bone severed asunder, and hear a certain crackling of these pieces under our hands,* 1.2 caused by the attrition of the shattered bones. Another sign is taken from the impotency of the part, which chiefly bewrayes it self, when both the bones, the leg, and brace-bones, the ell and wand are broken: For if only the brace-bone or wand be broken, the Patient may go on his leg,* 1.3 and stir his arm; for the Brace-bone serves for the sustaining of the muscles, and not of the body, as the leg-bone doth. The third sign is drawn from the figure of the part changed besides nature: for it is there hollow, from whence the bone is flown or gone, but gibbous or bunching out whither it is run. Great pain in the interim torments the Patient by reason of the wronged periosteum, and that membrane which involves the marrow and the sympathy of the ad∣jacent parts, which are compressed or pricked.