[p. 173]And these mistakes, the physician, conceited
in his knowledge, would probably not have committed if he had allowed
the patient himself to present his arm.
Part 3
But another physician putting the arm into the state of supination,
gives orders to extend the arm thus, and bandages it in this position,
reckoning it the one according to nature, judging thus from the skin,
and also fancying the bones to be thus in their natural position,
because the bone which protrudes at the wrist, where the little finger
is, appears to be in a line with the bone from which people measure
the bone of the fore-arm. These things he brings forward as proofs
that the parts are in their natural state, and he is supposed to speak
correctly. But, indeed, if the arm be kept stretched in a supine position,
it will become very painful, and this fact any one may ascertain by
extending his own arm in this attitude. And also a weaker man grasping
with his hands a stronger man whose arm is turned in a supine position,
could lead him wherever he chose, and neither, if a man held a sword
thus in his hand, could he make any proper use of it, so constrained
is this position. And, moreover, if, when a physician has thus bound
up the arm, he allow it to remain in the same position, the patient
will endure greater pain if he walk about, but considerable, even
if he remain at rest. And thus, too, if he shall bend the arm, the
muscles and the bones must necessarily assume a different position.
But, in addition to other mischief, he is ignorant of these facts
regarding the position, that the bone which protrudes at the wrist,
close to the little finger, belongs to the fore-arm, whereas the one
at the joint, from which people measure the fore-arm, is the head
of the humerus. He fancies that both these belong to the same bone,
and many others are of this opinion. The latter, in fact, is the same
part as that which is called the elbow, upon which we sometimes rest,
and when he holds the arm thus in a supine position, in the first
place the bone appears distorted, and in the next place the tendons
which extend from the carpus along the inner side and from the fingers
become distorted while the arm has a supine position; for these tendons
proceed to the bone of the humerus, from which the fore-arm is measured.
Such, and so
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