Spinal curvature : comprising a description of the various types of curvature of the spine with the mechanical appliances best suited for their treatment / by R. Heather Bigg ; ill. by the author with numerous pen-and-ink drawings.
- Bigg, Henry Robert Heather, 1853-1911.
- Date:
- 1882
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Spinal curvature : comprising a description of the various types of curvature of the spine with the mechanical appliances best suited for their treatment / by R. Heather Bigg ; ill. by the author with numerous pen-and-ink drawings. 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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![be remembered arises from a lack of tone in the muscles of the spine, in consequence of wbicb tbe natural spinal curves begin to sbow signs of changing, the shoulders are no longer held back by the muscles dedicated to that purpose, and the pec- toral muscles no longer have retracted shoulders as their ])oint§ cVappui in respiratory action, besides which the actual muscles of respiration have become so atouic as to fail to do their full amount of respi- ratory work. Respiration being thus impaired in action, the blood is inadequately aerated, a fact which goes towards still further reducing the tone of the system, and this in its turn again dimi- nishes still further respiratory movements and blood aeration, so that a kind of accumulative lowering of the system is going on. The moment, however, that the appliance depicted at Eigs. 4, 5, 6, and 7 is put on, the muscles of the spine are given their deficient power, the true curves of the spine are restored, and the thorax thereby enlarged in capacity, the shoulders are held back and constitute proper points of action for the pectoral muscles, and the tidal amount of air in the respiratory act is increased (as may be tested by a spirometer). As a consequence the blood is more fully aerated, the tone of the system improves, angemia disappears, and muscular energy becomes increased in such a way that all the train of symptoms (which are really the outcome of loss of muscular tone) disappear also, the muscular mechanisms of the body are restored to perfection, and finally the appliance itself, which wrought the beneficial changes, be- comes no longer needed. And if spinal curvature, when even incipient, has so deleterious an effect on respiration, it will be easily understood that when confirmed curvature has arisen, and the actual chest walls have become altered, respiration is affected to a still greater degree. And so it may be laid down that one of the secondary aims of all active appli-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21042007_0110.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
