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.
- Bigg, Heather (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. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![its turn bears, as its burden, the upper mass of the body, comprising lieacl, arms, and trunk, which said mass in the natural and healthy condition is evenly disposed, bilaterally balanced, and symmetrical around the spine both in weight and form. Now, these three factors, base below, sj)ine, and burden above, form together the integral whole of the body, and are kept in their proper positions one above the other by muscles obeying the gravital law whose exMbition is termed Bestituence. These three factors, base, spine, and burden, are relatively reliant on each other for their true position one above the other, and if anything directly affects the truth of one of these factors, it will indirectly affect the truth of tlie others. It follows, then, that spinal untruth, (using the word untruth as mechanical untruth, and synonymous with deformity) can be of intrinsic origin, and arise from alteration of the supine itself by its getting out of gear, as a piece of mechanism ; or that, while the spine is mechanically perfect and healthy, the other factors, base below it, or burden above it, may become untrue, and so react and cause untruth or deformity of the s]Dine itself, in which, case tlie deformity is of extrinsic origin. I. Curvature of intrinsic origin is wholly inde- pendent of abnormality in the circumstances of the spine. Tbe base below and the burden above are, to begin with, pefectly natural, and if they become deformed do so as result and not as cause. It is the column itself that errs. Now, the spinal column as a machine, was shown to consist of two parts, the musculo-nervous, dedicated to the generation of force, and the osseo-ligamentous, devoted to the con- version and adaptation of that force to its uses. Each, of these parts is liable to accidental and constitu- tional derangements, under which each is productive of a curvature varying vastly from the other in character and course of progress. So that intrinsic](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20389024_0026.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
