contrivance

A (mechanical) device to perform a certain task.

A means, such as an elaborate plan or strategy, to accomplish a certain objective.

I mean to give something as slight and inexpensive as possible; but I have been so long out of the way of these things, that I am really quite at a loss, and must throw myself on your kindness, as I hope you will be with me, and also Mr. and Mrs. Gooch. You must arrange in such a manner as not to blush for your own contrivances.

And along with each of these go their images, not the things themselves, — they too have come about by godlike contrivance.

Something overly artful or artificial.

When the stamens of a flower suddenly spring towards the pistil, or slowly move one after the other towards it, the contrivance seems adapted solely to ensure self-fertilisation; and no doubt it is useful for this end: but, the agency of insects is often required to cause the stamens to spring forward, as Kölreuter has shown to be the case with the barberry; and curiously in this very genus, which seems to have a special contrivance for self-fertilisation, it is well known that if very closely-allied forms or varieties are planted near each other, it is hardly possible to raise pure seedlings, so largely do they naturally cross.

The Harry Hamlin character is a bit of a hypochondriac, a contrivance that exists for the sole purpose of bringing him into contact with the confused young doctor at the clinic.