Club foot : its causes, pathology and treatment.

  • Adams, William, 1936-
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Club foot : its causes, pathology and treatment. 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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    Brodhurst* (1856 and 1859) refers to experiments on rabbits in which he divided the Achilles tendons subcutaneously, but no details are given as to the number of experiments, nor are the appearances presented described in the general account given. In addition to the numerous series of experiments made by the authors above referred to, with descriptions of the appear- ances presented and exact references to published accounts, from which the descriptions of other writers are generally taken, there can be no doubt that other experiments have been made, and probably both Bouvier and Duval performed inde- pendent experiments, but in the general description given by these authors of the reparative process, no exact references either to the specimens, or to any published accounts are given. A resume of the published descriptions of experiments on animals, as well as such post-mortem examinations in the human subject as have been recorded, will be found in a work on this subject which I have published.* There can be no doubt that the nature of the process by which reunion of tendon takes place, after subcutaneous teno-- tomy, has been minutely and accurately described by the various observers to whose experiments I have just referred. The descriptions of the phenomena observed, however, as well as the views which the observers have been led to form, more especially in reference to the influence of extravasated blood, inflammatory lymph, and the sheath of the tendon, in the reparative process, are widely different in many important respects. Compare, for example, the accounts given by Ger- staecker and Thierfelder, with the description given by Paget in the work above referred to. Theory of the reparative process in human tendons. The point of more direct surgical interest, viz., the modus operandi of tenotomy in curing deformities; or the pre- * On tlie Nature and Treatment of Club-Foot, London, 1856. Also a eomnmnication to the Eoyal Society, November 4tli, 1859, On the repair of tendons after their subcutaneous division. An abstract of this paper onlj has appeared in the Proceedings of the Eoyal Society, No. 37, 1860. t On the Reparative process in Human Tendons. Churchill, London, 1860.