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
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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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    muscles ; or paralysis of certain muscles will disturb the antagonising powers in a limb, inducing deformity. In these cases, the muscles being primarily affected, the articu- lations become secondarily involved. Cicatrices from loss of substance, as from gangrene, ulceration, burns, &c, excite deformity in a similar manner. The second subdivision of non-congenital deformities consists, then, of those which arise from causes indirectly affecting the articulations; and in order to distinguish a case of this nature from ankylosis, I name it contracture. A third subdivision of acquired deformities is to be found in the distortions arising from causes that simultaneously affect both the muscles and the joints [the active and passive organs of movement]; such are rachitic deformities, which you know to be deformities from debility [imperfect nutrition or assimilation]. Congenital deformities are divisible into two classes. I shall hereafter describe several distortions, of variable severity, induced, in my opinion [for the most part], by derangements of the nervous and muscular systems of the foetus, independently of any absence or deficiency of parts, characterised, also, by their capability of restoration to a surprising degree of perfection. These I shall include under the head of congenital distortions. In the last cate- gory I shall consider those in which, whatever may have been the primary interruption of normal development in the fcetal parts, a total absence, incompleteness, or mal- formation of organs exists. These may be termed con- genital malformations. Every deformity of the human frame with which I am acquainted is referrible to some one of the above patholo- gical heads. Some of my hearers may have observed that no direct mention has been made of distortions of the spinal column. But I have already stated my objections to a classification of deformities founded on regions of the body. Some distortions of the spine, moreover, are refer- rible to the first subdivision, namely, ankylosis [causes