Roller
Roller (Eze 30:21), chittul, חַתּוּל, a bandage, so called from being wrapped around a broken limb to keep the fractured parts in place till healed. So Rosenmüller explains the figure (Scholia, ad loc.). The roller, in surgery, is a long fillet or strip of muslin or other webbing rolled upon itself in a cylindrical form, employed to give mechanical support in many of the diseases and injuries to which the human body is liable. In the case of a broken arm, the surgeon brings the fragments of the bone together in normal position, and next places the limb in splints or stays lined with cotton, wool, or other soft material, to protect the flesh against unequal pressure, and then secures the whole by firmly winding the roller round and round the limb over the stays, so as to maintain the broken ends of the bone in coaptation until the process of ossific reunion is completed. The familiar manner of this incidental reference shows that the practice of the present enlightened surgery was known to the profession in the days of Ezekiel. The name used to designate this bandage not only implies the form giving the greatest facility to its ready application, but is the very word which scientific works of the present day employ to express the same thing. The object of this revelation, as it would seem, was not to impart information respecting the special contrivances of the healing art, but to present to the mind of the prophet the great prospective fact that the predicted disability of Pharaoh would be permanent, as one of the essentials to restorative treatment would be wanting.
