An essay on curvatures and diseases of the spine : including all the forms of spinal distortion / ... by R. W. Bampfield ... Ed. by J. K. Mitchell.

  • Bampfield, R. W. (Robert William), -1827.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on curvatures and diseases of the spine : including all the forms of spinal distortion / ... by R. W. Bampfield ... Ed. by J. K. Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    sibility of their being ultimately restored. Permanent curvature, however, must be perpetual, wliile many of the bodies of the ver- tebrtB are destroyed or taken away, either by caries or absorp- tion, or where progressive absorption of the cartilages occurs (as in old age), after nature has withdrawn the power of regenera- tion. Curvatures and projections of the spine are most commonly formed during the growth of the body, and from the age of one to twenty-one years; they however occur, with less frequency, from this age to that of forty years ; beyond which period of life Mr. Pott says he has never seen it;* but my worthy friend, Mr. C. Hutchison, did me the fiwour to show me a case of excurva- tion of the spine in Elizabeth Charles, at the Cock and Bottle, in the Strand, who was forty-six years old. The excurvation of old age is obviously formed at a more advanced period. Since the days of the celebrated author, whose name is by a sort of prescriptive right associated with this disease, so that our French neighbours denominate it Maladie de Pott, it has been, until very recently, fashionable to admit, that wherever there is curvature of the spine, there must exist caries as a cause, arising chiefly from scrofulous action ; but the first part of this position is generally incorrect and untenable, as the cases of curvature with- out caries are far more numerous than those in which caries occurs ; and if the nosological division of those diseases already proposed , had not appeared more perspicuous and convenient, I should have adopted the nosological distinction of curvatures into those with, and those without, caries. CHAPTER H. EXCURVATION OF THE SPINE. Sect. I. — History and Sijmi')toms of this Disease. This variety of spinal distortion is more frequently formed than any other f and on this account, may be first considered. It is induced during childhood, puberty, and more rarely in adult age. In old age the curvature of senility sometimes occurs, and might ^ [We are unable to admit the greater frequency of this form of spinal distortion in girls. It is so in boys, wlio are seldom af- fected with any other form; but girls are much more frequently attacked by lateral curvature. — Ed.] * Further remarks on the useless state of the lower limbs, p. 9. 2*
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