Possibly no portion of the whole science was so backward as this.

Thirty-five centuries ago Darius, son of Hydaspis, suffered a simple luxation of the foot; it was not diagnosed in this land of Apis and of the deified discoverer of medicine.

Among the wise men of Egypt, then in her acme of civilization, there was not one to reduce the simple luxation which any student of the present day would easily diagnose and successfully treat.

Throughout the dark ages and down to the present century, the hideous and unnecessary apparatus employed, each decade bringing forth new types, is abundantly pictured in the older books on surgery; in some almost recent works there are pictures of windlasses and of individuals making superhuman efforts to pull the luxated member back--all of which were given to the student as advisable means of treatment.
Relative to anomalous dislocations the field is too large to be discussed here, but there are two recent ones worthy of mention.
Bradley relates an instance of death following a subluxation of the right humerus backward on the scapula It could not be reduced because the tendon of the biceps lay between the head of the humerus and a piece of the bone which was chipped off.
Baxter-Tyrie reports a dislocation of the shoulder-joint, of unusual origin, in a man who was riding a horse that ran away up a steep hill.
After going a few hundred yards the animal abated its speed, when the rider raised his hand to strike.

Catching sight of the whip, the horse sprang forward, while the man felt an acute pain and a sense of something having given way at his shoulder.