Engravings illustrative of a work on The nature and treatment of the distortions to which the spine and the bones of the chest are subject / By John Shaw.

  • John Shaw
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Engravings illustrative of a work on The nature and treatment of the distortions to which the spine and the bones of the chest are subject / By John Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    there can be little doubt that the distortion was originally similar to that in the upper part of a spine, affected with the common lateral curvature. We may therefore suppose that the right side was at first more capacious than the left. But the area of the right side is now much diminished. It is highly important to attend to this fact, for although it may be caused by the natural progress of the distortion, yet it often comes from the misapplication of instruments, which have been intended to push in the projecting shoulder. It is easy to demonstrate that the application of an instrument with this intention, not only diminishes the area of the chest, but increases the distortion; for the shoulder js pressed against the flat part of the ribs, and consequently the unnatural angle, which is formed in the ribs even in cases of slight distortion, is increased. During the last six months, I have had ample opportunities of proving the correctness of these observations, (some of which have been already published in the accompanying volume,) and also that similar changes are produced in the form of the ribs by long confinement to one position; indeed it is obvious that the effect of the weight of the body continually pressing the shoulder against a hard mattrass, while the ribs are growing, must be nearly the same as that produced by an instrument. Iam at this time attending three patients who had, previously to my seeing them, submitted to a plan of treatment which has of late been very generally followed; viz. That of laying the patient on the back and making strong pressure on the shoulders and ribs. One had followed this plan for eighteen months, another for twenty, and the third for more than two years. I was told by the friends of each, that the spine was more straight and the shoulder not so prominent as when they commenced the plan; and that therefore, although there was still great distortion, and the patient was so miserably weak as not to be able to sit up, it had been of service. The sketches and the observations made in various parts of this work, are sufficient to shew that what may appear to a parent's eye an improve- ment, is in reality the reverse. Indeed the natural shape of the ribs was so completely destroyed in each of the cases alluded to, by the attempts made to push in the projecting shoulders and ribs, that I was obliged to limit my hopes to the ameliorating and rendering their condition more comfortable; the curvature, as far as the shape and figure are concerned, have become irremediable.
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