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
Catalogue details

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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    the individual was supported beneath the arm-pits and against the sides of the lower ribs. It is in fact the position which the patient could for a short period daily assume in a chair properly padded and ar- ranged for the purpose.] Spinal distortion from burns, wounds, attended with loss of substance and subsequent ci- catrices, are rare, because the spine is less exposed than the members to accidental injury. You can comprehend the man- ner in which cicatrices may dis- tort the spine as Well as Other Model of the subject of figs. U9,U0, when *■ supported beneath the arm-pits. regions of the body. [The spinal and chest deformity which, as well in chil- dren as in young adults, succeeds recovery from pleurisy, with effusion into the chest, requires mention here. De- formity thus produced appears to the casual observer si- milar to ordinary lateral curvature of the spine ; and when slight, even the experienced eye may sometimes hesitate in diagnosis. The dorsal curve in contraction from pleurisy is more uniform, involves the whole dorsal region, the depression of shoulder on the contracted side is relatively greater, the reduction of capacity of the con- tracted side applies to the front as well as the back of the chest, the posterior angles of the ribs on the expanded side are less salient, and rotation of the vertebrae on their horizontal axes is either entirely absent or very slight. For many years the author was accustomed to regard the deformity of the chest and spine after empyema as a necessary and irremediable evil. Observation of the extent to which burn-cicatrices may in favourable situations be elongated, and the effect of exercise of the part in prevent- Fig. 151.