1. Experiences with the treatment of 135 fractures of the tibia with a below-the-knee brace are described. The brace is composed of a conventional shoe, short double uprights, and ankle joints which are attached to a plaster-of-Paris or thermoplastic cylinder shaped like a patellar-tendon-bearing prosthesis.

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2. The results obtained from preliminary studies of forty cases of tibial fracture treated with a thermoplastic brace are described.

3. It appears from the results obtained from the first 135 cases that uneventful healing of tibial fractures can be obtained while function of the knee and ankle joints is maintained and the patients walk with full weight-bearing beginning about four weeks after fracture.

4. The rapid healing of the fracture in most patients suggests that the early resumption of nearly normal physiological conditions in the limb is conducive to prompt and uninterrupted osteogenesis.

5. With this method of treatment rehabilitation of patients with tibial fractures

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has been facilitated significantly. Elderly patients and those with bilateral tibial fracture seem to have benefited the most.