On the injuries and diseases of bones : being selections from the collected edition of the clinical lectures of Baron Dupuytren, Surgeon-in-chief to the Hôtel-Dieu at Paris / translated and edited by F. Le Gros Clark.
- Guillaume Dupuytren
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the injuries and diseases of bones : being selections from the collected edition of the clinical lectures of Baron Dupuytren, Surgeon-in-chief to the Hôtel-Dieu at Paris / translated and edited by F. Le Gros Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
454/486 page 432
![of thick consistence, something like lard_, and contained in a number of small cells, formed of osseous lamellae of extreme delicacy. This, then, was clearly a case of spina-ventosa. This disease forms one amongst a thousand illustrations of the errors and anomalies which spring from our not being guided by positive knowledge in pathological anatomy. The vagueness which still exists as to what is to be understood by the word spina-ventosa, an expression both barbarous and ridi- culous, is such, that many writers of great merit have described, as examples of this disease, true exostoses or hyperostoses with thinning of the osseous tissue, whilst others have confounded this disease, in all its stages, with osteo-sarcoma. Spina-ventosa is not a very common, neither is it a very rare disease: but, either it has not been made the subject of in- vestigation after death, or the utmost that has been done con- sisted in preparing and preserving the bone, without a thought being given to the examination of the medullary membrane. Our museums are filled with preparations of this kind, which confirm the justice of M. Beyer's remark, that the skeleton of the disease has been studied, whilst the disease itself has been altogether neglected and lost sight of. In true spina-ventosa, the medullary membrane is the pri- mary seat of the disease, secreting, and itseK ultimately con- verted into, a fungous, gelatiniform or lardaceous substance, sometimes chalky and of reddish colour, mixed Avith serum : by this the bone is distended and reduced to a mere shell. In fact, it is of a true fungoid character; and the dilatation of the bone is merely a mechanical effect of the disease, as in fungi of the antrum. There is another disease of bones to which M. Nehiton has particularly directed attention,^ namely, tubercles. Encysted tubercles in adults have been several times met with in the post-mortem examinations at the Hotel-Dieu; but M. Nekton first directed attention to tubercular deposit in bone, such as is met with in the lungs. He discovered this by removing the periosteum, and on observing a marbled appearance of the surface of the bone, he proceeded to saw off the external com- pact layer, and then sliced the bone with a strong scalpel; by • Recherches sur I'AflFcction tuberculeuse dcs Os. 1836. [These concludiiig paragraphs are evidently inserted hy the Editors.—Tr.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b23982573_0454.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
