Case of spontaneous luxation of the vertebra dentata / by William Thomson.

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
[1834]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of spontaneous luxation of the vertebra dentata / by William Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Neither Mr B.’s medical attendants nor his relations had ever heard him make the slightest allusion to any pain or un- easiness in the region of the neck, and the only circumstance wliich occurred to them as bearing in the most distant degree, on the supposition of disease existing in this region, was a habit he had of occasionally twitching his head to a side, as if to relieve himself from some tightness of his shirt collar or neckcloth. In my father’s Surgical Notes I find it mentioned, that “ Mr Cruikshank, when treating of the spine, shows a dislocation of the dentata, which occurred in a woman from a sudden motion, and which was followed by sudden deathand I find the fol- lowing fuller, though still incomplete, account of the same case, in an abstract of a selection from an unpublished volume of Anatomical llejwrts, by the late respected anatomist Mr Wil- son of London, published in the London Medical Gazette, Vol. iii. 1828-129. * “ Luxation of the Dentata!^—Mr Wilson assisted Mr Cruik- shank in examining the body of a woman, aged 30, who had lain-in about a month l)efore. She had been heard suckling her child at one o’clock in the morning; at four she was found dead. The viscera of the abdomen, thorax, and head, were carefully examined, without finding any thing to account for her death; when, as they were returning the brain into the skull, Mr Wil- son noticed a considerable projection on the fore-part of the fora- men magnum. On examination, this was found to be the den- ticular process of the dentata luxatetl backwards, and which had produced a degree of pressure on the spinal marrow sufficient to destroy life.” This is the only case I have been able to find recordetl that corresponds in its nature to that which I have now submitted to the Society, that is, a case of luxation of one of the superior cer- vical vertebrae, independently of external violence, or of the pre- vious existence of well-marked symptoms of disease. Indeed, I am the more induced to believe that this is an extremely rare occurrence, from iinding that no allusion is made to it in a very learned inaugural dissertation written expressly on the subject of Spontaneous Luxation of the Atlas and Epistropheus, by Dr Schupke, a pupil of the celebrated Professor Rust. All the in- stances of the sjjontaneous luxation of these vertehree referred to by Schupke, depended on the effects of inflammatory action, evident symptoms of which had manifested themselves during life. • Since the above conmiunication was laid before Uie Society, 1 have, by the kind- nets of Dr J. A. Wilson, had an opportunity of reading Mr Cruikshank's case as detailed in the MS. volume above reierred to, and have been enabled, by the resto- ration of a few words, to render the following statement of it somewhat more precise. Printed by John Stark, Old Assembly Close.