Practical treatise on the diseases of children and infants at the breast : including the hygiene and physical education of young children / translated from the French of M. Bouchut, with notes and additions, by Peter Hinckes Bird.

  • Eugène Bouchut
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical treatise on the diseases of children and infants at the breast : including the hygiene and physical education of young children / translated from the French of M. Bouchut, with notes and additions, by Peter Hinckes Bird. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    171/802 page 149
    It is doubtful whether there is a sufficiently trustworthy example recorded of amyelia, or absence of the cord, the brain being present. Morgagni, copying Raygei, has given two such cases ; but the opinion of one of the highest authorities in this matter, Ollivier, is, that the description of them is not complete or preciso enough to warrant their acceptation. Illustrations of atelomyelia or imperfect conformation of the spinal centre are by no means wanting ; generally speaking, absence of any portion of the encephalon is accompanied with that of the walls of the cranium, and when both are extreme, they constitute a case of acephalia, or headless condition. In amyelencephalia, separation of the parts of the vertébrée, either through the whole length of the spine, or in parts of it, always occurs—but not constantly with protrusion of a membranous sac, as in spina bifida. It has been affirmed that when the brain and spinal cord are both absent, neither cranial cavity nor spinal canal can exist : this assertion is opposed by Fabrê, and .is entirely unsupported.—P.H.B.] CHAPTER VI. ON HYDRORACHIS OR SPINA BIFIDA. Hydrorachis, or spina bifida, is a vice of conformation characterized by the existence, at the posterior part of the spine, of a cleft in the bones, whence the coverings of the cord, sometimes a part of the cord itself, and always a greater or less quantity of serum, protrude. Thence one or two tumours containing liquid, situated along the vertebral column, result. Usually there is only one of them, and it is situated in the lumbar region. Bidloo, Valsalva, Hoin, have seen examples which occupied the whole length of the vertebral column; and Dubourg has seen one which descended in the form of a calabash as low as the heels. Hydrorachis is a congenital disease, the causes of which are entirely unknown. Camper has observed it in twins. It has been referred to external violence received during pregnancy, to a vicious position of the embryo, to the accumulation of the cranial serosity, which prevents the reunion of the vertebra?, &c. It is very frequent, and, according to Chaussier, it has been met with twenty-twTo times in 22,293 children born or left at the Maternité, that is to say, in the proportion of one case of spina bifida in one thousand births. Hydrorachis is observed under the form of a tumour of variable size, wide or narrowed at the base, and pedicellate or bilobate. It is rounded, soft, opaque, sometimes transparent, and without any change in the colour of the skin. It is fluctuating, and compression reduces its size very much, by causing the return of the serum it contains. If there are several tumours, fluctuation is readily transmitted from one to the other, and what one loses in size is compensated for by the
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