Curvatures of the spine / by Noble Smith.

  • Smith, E. Noble (Eldred Noble), 1847-1906
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curvatures of the spine / by Noble Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    CURVATURES OF THE SPINE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The spine may be abnormally curved as a consequence of a variety of conditions. Its position may be influenced by con- genital deformity; by accident; by dissolution of a portion of its thickness as in caries, cancer, absorption from the pressure of an aneurism or other tumour; by softening, rarefaction, or inflammatory affection of its bony structure, such as rachitis, osteomalacia, osteitis deformans; and by long-continued pos- ture. Posture will influence even a healthy spine in the course of time, and more rapidly a weak one. Unnatural softness of the bones is probably the most potent predisposing cause, whether this be induced by general debility or by some more definite pathological condition. A scrofulous constitu- tion, or one might say a tuberculous predisposition, undoubtedly favours or produces this unnatural softness, but as the direction of the curves is apparently the result of the mechanical in- fluence of posture, the cases in which this deformity occurs are usually classed as posture deformities. In this introductory chapter I have thought it better to dis- cuss the questions which in my experience most frequently arise regarding cases of curvature, than to take up the reader's time by giving the history of the subject. The following remarks in this chapter were embodied in a paper which I contributed to The Practitioner two years ago, and refer chiefly to lateral, the more common form of cur- vature, and the one with which we chiefly have to deal. Every medical man must meet with cases of lateral curva- ture of the spine, and it is, probably, often a vexed question as to the best course of treatment which can be adopted. The first question that will probably occur is Will the chile]