I often dream about days of past, like the 1950s, 60s and 70s, even into the 1980s. The days when most orthopedic disorders or injuries were believed best treated by long periods of rigid immobilization. Before the invention of "functional fracture bracing", "camwalkers", "internal fixation" and other "great" advancements in orthopedics.
Before the Internet and the online world, before the recreational cast sites were thought of, I would spend hours in libraries searching for anything cast related. I started this in collage in the early 1980s. The school I attended had a large nursing program and the library had a good selection of medical periodicals and textbooks. Some of the periodicals dated back twenty years or more. In later years I would find that many hospitals would have a medical library usually hidden in the basement or some out of the way place that were open to, and welcomed the public. Thus I would spend afternoons flipping through old issues of "Orthopedic Nursing" or "The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery", discovering things like hip spica casts and various treatments for things like "scoliosis" or "slipped capital femoral epiphysis".
As I began reading the medical journals, I could see the change of direction in the medical field. In the 1960s the treatment of choice, I would read, for a tibia/fibula fracture would be a plaster long leg cast for 10 to 12 weeks. Medical journals would almost always say that the effective treatment must immobilize the joint above, and the joint below the fracture site. It is clear reading these publications that doctors believed in long periods of complete immobilization and primarily used plaster of paris to achieve this goal.
But today doctors have decided that there are better treatments. The Medical journals of the 90s talk of "internal fixation" and "early mobilization". Treatments that I'm sure are much better for most people, but are horrendous thoughts to those of us who love to see people with plaster of fiberglass encased limbs. Imagine a cast lover who has always dreamed of a real medical cast breaking their leg. Then the doctor gives him the "good news" that it can be treated surgically and although he will have to cut him open and insert metal screws in them and that there will be some painful rehabilitation, they won't need a cast and should be up walking with crutches, although painfully, with in a few weeks.
It seems that more and more today your more likely to see someone in a so called "fracture brace" or "camwalker" that's held on with Velcro, than to see someone crutching along or riding in a wheelchair with their leg encased in plaster. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, I remember the casts I saw in those days. I marveled at the smooth shiny plaster, usually with writing all over them, and they often covered the whole limb. As the years went by, I began to notice that fewer casts covered the whole limb, more and more were below the knee walking casts. Then came the fiberglass, then removable braces with Velcro and such.
These days I go to events such as fairs, festivals or airshows where there are large groups of people and see two or three casts and maybe a dozen or so people on crutches with no cast, or maybe they have a camwalker, air cast, or a Velcro on knee immobilizer. I dream about going to an event like that in the 1960s or 70s and seeing maybe 10 or 15 people in various plaster casts. I can remember those days to some extent. Although I was not old enough to think at the time that I could be actually looking for casts instead of looking at airplanes or whatever. If I had known, I bet I would have seen a lot more than I did.
I do remember some of the casts I have seen in past years. I have seen several hip spica casts and quite a few really nice long leg casts, both plaster and fiberglass. I know that these sightings are becoming very rare and may some day be nonexistent. I have talked to younger casters on IRC's Castroom that have never seen a hip spica and have seen very few full length casts. I feel at least fortunate to have been around in the times to have seen what I have.