Clinical lectures on subjects connected with medicine and surgery / by various German authors.

  • New Sydenham Society.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on subjects connected with medicine and surgery / by various German authors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    Hegar added the reflection that what could do harm might in certain circumstances do good. And starting from some anatomical investigations of his own, he contrived a method for producing extension of the cord in the living subject, which consists essentially in this, that either the head and thorax are passively flexed towards the lower extremities, or the latter, kept extended, are flexed towards the head and thorax. This is to be done without an anaesthetic, and the exercise of undue force is to be avoided. I cannot call Hegar's idea a happy one. From several observations of my own in the matter, I believe that all that is allowable and of any use in his spinal extension in the living subject can be attained by the use of chamber gymnastics. And in consideration of the very great difierences in different individuals in the elasticity of the inter-vertebral connections,* we can by no means exclude with Hegar's method the danger of injuring the spinal column, or even— through tearing of vessels particularly—of injuring the cord and its membranes.f We are still quite in the dark as to what the method has specially accomplished. Motschutkowsky,^^ a Russian physician, tried stretching the body by suspending the patient. Among fifteen cases of tabes thirteen are said to have improved in respect of pains, paraesthesige, ataxia, and muscular strength, while the remaining two became worse under the treatment. In some other cases of disease of the cord—diffuse myelitis, insular sclerosis, &c.—Motschutkowsky gained no result. In tabes he recommends suspension for ten minutes three or four times a week. He thinks the therapeutic effect is to be referred to the stretching of the nerves and arterial trunks ; this produces a rise of blood pressure in the cord, and a consequent acceleration of the circulation. In spite of these physiological arguments there are probably few physicians who will be found ready to continue Motschutkowsky's trials.]: Some physicians have seen good done in several forms of * Let US call to mind, for example, the performances of some circus clowns and contortionists, and compare with these the mobility of the spiual column in one who has had no athletic training. t Hegar himself remarks : The proceeding is not so harmless as it may appear at first sight. At any rate, my experience of it, both in the healthy and in those affected by disease, though not yet of course very large, has convinced me that it has a very distinct effect. X This was written in 1888.—Tr.