CHAP. I. Of the kinds and manners of Dislocations.
A Dislocation is the departure or falling out of the head of a bone from its proper cavity, into an accustomed place besides nature, hindring voluntary motion.* 1.1 There is another kind of Luxation, which is caused by a violent distention, and as it were a certain divarication, and dilatation, or extension into length and bredth of the ligaments, and all the nervous bodies, which contain, strengthen, and bind toge∣ther the joints. Thus those who have been tormented and racked, have that thick ligament which is in the inner cavity of the huckle bone too violently extended. Those who have suffered the Strappado, have the ligaments encompassing the articulation of the arm bone, with the shoulder blade, forcibly and violently distended. Such also is their affect, whose foot is strain∣ed by slipping. There is a third kinde of Luxation,* 1.2 when as those bones which are joyned conti∣guous, and one (as it were) bound to the sides of another, gape or fly asunder: as in the arm, when the ell parts from the wand; in the leg, when the one focile flies from the other: yet this may be referred to the second sort of dislocations, because it happens not without dilatation, or else the breaking of the ligaments. There is also a fourth added to these,* 1.3 as when the Epiphyses and heads of bones are plucked from the bone whereon they were placed or fastned; which unproper∣ly called kind of Luxation, hath place chiefly in the bones of young people, and it is known by the impotency of the part, and by the noise and grating together of the crakling bones when they are handled. Now the bones of young folks are also incident to another casualty; for as the bones of old people are broken by violence, by reason of their driness and hardness, thus the bones of children are bended or crooked in by reason of their natural softness and humidity.