Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake.

  • Sheldrake, Timothy.
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Useful hints to those who are afflicted with ruptures : on the nature, cure, and consequences of the disease, and on the empirical practices of the present day / by T. Sheldrake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    xxui of suro-ery, %vliose knowledge, judgment and intcgritj, <' wei-e unquestionable, and who would, therefore, alwa^-s ascertain whether what I attempted was rational, and. what degree of success attended my efforts. The un- *' biassed opinions of these gentlemen are added to the history of each case, and will form a mass of incontro- *' vertible evidence to the truth of the facts. After describing fifteen cases, in many of which his method of management completely succeeded, he comes to tiie circumstances that render the club-foot curable, or otherwise. In considering this part of the subject, he finds it necessary to inquire into the anatomical structure of the parts concerned, and fit'om the examination of the bones in these cases of disease, he attempts to prove, p. 87,— That before the age of two years, the indi- vidual bones of a club-foot are not distorted in any man- *' ner; that as far as the-bones are concerned in the dis- *' ease, it is only by improper combination ; that after the *' age of two years, individual bones become deformed, according to cu-cumstances, Avhich vary in different *' cases ; but which do not, in all, 'render the disease in- curable. I shall now proceed to examine the condition of the ligaments, in various stages of the disease, in order to discover what alterations must be produced in them, in order to effect a cure. The ligaments and muscles are examined in the same way, and several practical deductions laid down. From the whole these conclusions are formed, P. 135.— That three distinct operations are' requi- site to cure this deformity ; first, to reduce the bones to their natural position, and natural form, if the patient's age has occasioned any malformation to take *' P^^^'^ 5 secondly, to produce extension of any muscle that has actually been contracted, or seems to be so froui the position and consequent inactivity of the foot; and thirdly, to keep the foot bound in its natural posi- *^ tion, till those muscles which have, from , the cireum- stances of the disease, been weak and inactive, perfectly recover their tone ar^d power, when, and when only, the cure will be complete. it 1 u ^'^]^ likewise be permitted to conclude, from what has been said, that every case of this disease may nTrl^'il -^^ ^^^^'^ Patient is three yea/s Old ; that after that age, some may soon become in- curable ;