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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![stituents, namely, tlie nervous centres, the muscles, and the nerve-line of communication between the two. The action of this musculo-nervous combina- tion is most simply expressed, however, by referring to the muscles alone as acting, and sinking for the moment the other elements of the musculo-nervous combination, just in the same manner as in speaking of a bell which really consists of a bell-handle, a bell-wire, and the bell itself, reference is made to the bell alone. The spinal muscles then clothe the spine, and if they act truly and uniformly, both maintain the shape of the spine and enable it to- perform its balancing duties. The muscles, however, will only act truly if they are healthy and tonic. Now, there are certain impoverished or morbid states of a person's system which may affect all the muscles equally, and through the entire spine may render them unhealthy and unequal to the duties they have- to perform. On the other hand, it often happens, from some local injury or lesion, that only one or two of the spinal muscles may become the subjects of impaired power, all the other muscles remaining healthy and intact. From these two different con- ditions two different kinds of deformity arise, the first, which may be styled the general type of musculo-nervous curvature, in which the entire set of spinal muscles are debilitated and in which the general conditions of balance become unfulfilled, and the other may be styled the ]jarticular type of musculo-nervous curvature, for in it only a few of the spinal muscles are affected, either with loss of power (paralysis) or increase of power (spasm), and the conditions of balance become partially deranged. (i) General musculo-nervous Curvature arises from general debility or atonicity of the system, and consequently is Hable to overtake any one in times of great constitutional weakness, and more particu- larly those whose growth is as yet incomplete, and](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20389024_0038.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
