Specification of James Coles : prevention and treatment of distortions of the spine, chest, &c.

  • Coles, James.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of James Coles : prevention and treatment of distortions of the spine, chest, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Coles' Improvements in Apparatus for Preventing Pistortio7is of the Spine. Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her said Majesty’s High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear. 5 HOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said James Coles, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, reference being had to the Drawings hereunto annexed, and to the figures and letters marked thereon 10 that is to say :— The apparatus in which I claim the Invention of certain improvements consisted of a machine known as the Prone Couch, employed for the purpose of maintaining the recumbent position on the stomach and chest, either by day or by night, and of various machinery for the accomplishment of certain ]5 exercises for strengthening and otherwise benefitting the muscles of the back, chest, and extremities of the human body. The prone couch is represented in the Diagram Figure 1 of the accompanying Drawing. It consists of a hori¬ zontal frame (a) supporting a flap (b), which is hinged at (x) to a sloping board (c), in which is a moveable foot-board (/). It is supported on the end 20 of this sloping board and upon two legs (d), which are united by a connecting bar (e). In reclining upon this couch the body of the patient rests upon the horizontal flap from the point of the shoulder as far as the bend of the hips, from whence the lower extremities hang downwards upon the sloping board towards the foot-board. It is important to the perfect adaptation of this 25 couch to the case requiring its use that the horizontal flap should be of an. exact length corresponding to that of the patient, measured from the bend of the hips to the point of the shoulder; and my improvements for facilitating this object consists in the substitution of a sliding framework in place of the simple board which forms the old flap, by means of which I am able to make 30 that portion of the prone couch longer or shorter, as circumstances may require. I thus render the same couch available for patients of different sizes, or to the increasing size of the patient using it. This sliding frame¬ work is constructed in two parts (see Figure 2, a and b), and the following will be found a convenient size. Upon two pieces of half-inch board, a and b, 35 Figure 3, prepared the width of the sloping board of the prone couch, and seven inches in length (being half the length of the frame) when put together, are screwed or glued lengthways a number of rails of the same thickness, and fourteen inches long, c, c, Figure 2 ; their width must be proportioned to the