On the nature and treatment of the deformities of the human frame : being a course of lectures delivered at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in 1843 ; with numerous notes and additions to the present time / by W.J. Little.
- William Little
- Date:
- 1853
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the nature and treatment of the deformities of the human frame : being a course of lectures delivered at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in 1843 ; with numerous notes and additions to the present time / by W.J. Little. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![FORMER ABANDONMENT treatment of deformities remained for the most part in per- fectly ignorant hands. So neglected in general was the matter, that an unfortunate sufferer from a congenital de- formity, after failure of some simple means adopted by the midwife or accoucheur, was happy, in many situations, in finding a common blacksmith who could partially relieve his infirmity by the construction of an iron. Individual empirics and instrument-makers, by dint of greater per- severance, unquestionably obtained greater success in treat- ment than others; but their experience was either confined to themselves, being totally lost on the cessation of their labours, or, if they published any account of them, the work consisted usually only of announcements of their remarkable cures, instead of the means by which other practitioners might reasonably expect success. A circum- stance equally prejudicial to the art of curing deformities was the common habit of exaggerating the results of any really useful plan, less, in many instances, from studied dissimulation, than from the tendency to delusion m the empiric, who had, in truth, occasionally effected a cure that had not been attempted by a regular practitioner Success in some cases created a greater evil, namely, that of professing to remedy more serious deformities, i allure in these brought discredit on preceding labours, and so retarded confidence in orthopaedy. Thus the labours of the few talented medical men who devoted their energies to this subject did not receive proper attention. Ine names that stand foremost among the regenerators of or- thopaedy are those of Thilenius, a physician of Frankfort, who first [about 1789] caused division of a contracted tendo Achillistobe effected; of Scarpa,who first [1803] attempted the scientific adaptation of an apparatus to the ««?^ condition of the bones of the distorted foot; of M^haehs [1811] and Sartorius, who repeated the operation of Ini- lenius: of Dupuytren, who investigated the pathology of contracture of the fingers, and improved the operation for](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21289141_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
