During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there came many medical experts with academic achievements in orthopedics and traumatology. They had written many monographs in orthopedics and traumatology. They not only summed up the ancestors’ experience, but also continuously put forward new theories and viewpoints, forming different schools. This is the prosperous period in the development of orthopedics and traumatology.

There were thirteen departments in imperial hospital in the Ming Dynasty, of which there were two special departments of "metal and arrow wounds" and "bone reunion", which were respectively changed to surgical department and bone-setting department in 1571. The works on orthopedics and traumatology had been continuously printed and published. Zhengti Leiyao (Classified Essentials of Bone-Setting), written by Xue Ji in the Ming Dynasty, recorded 65 successful cases, with 71 prescriptions. The book mainly dealt with the treatment of contusions, strains and fractures on the basis of syndrome differentiation. Xue Ji paid great attention to holistic therapy.

In the preface of the book, he pointed out, "If the body is damaged externally, qi and blood will be injured internally, then nutritive qi and defensive qi will become disharmonious and viscera discordant". This expounds the dialectical relationship between the local part and the whole body in orthopedic and traumatological diseases. The view gave a great influence to the late ages. In Jinchuang Michuan Jinfang (Secret Formulas for Incised Wound) there was a record of "bony crepitus" as the method of examining fracture.

The imperial hospital in the Qing Dynasty was composed of nine departments, two of which were "department of carbuncle and ulcer" and "department of bone-setting". Zhenggu Xinfa Yaozhi of Yizong Jinjian (Essentials of Methods for Bone-Setting in the Golden Mirror of Medicine), written by Wu Qian, et al, systematically summarized the experience in orthopedics and traumatology before the Qing Dynasty, giving a detailed explanation about length measurement of various bones, and external and internal treatments and their formulas and drugs.

The book is excellent in both illustration and language, paying attention to both theory and practice. In this book, the manipulation of bone-setting was summarized as eight methods of Mo (feeling), Jie (connecting), Duan (carrying), Ti (lifting), Tui (pushing), Na (pinching), An (pressing), Moo (rubbing), and manipulation for treating pain in waist and legs due to tendon injuries was also introduced. Several instruments for fixation were created or reformed, such as Tongmu (for vertebral fracture), Yaozhu (for waist injury), Zhulian and Shali (in combination for limb fracture), Baoxi quan (for patellar fracture).