Morbus Coxarius / by Lewis A. Sayre.

  • Sayre, Lewis A. (Lewis Albert), 1820-1900.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Morbus Coxarius / by Lewis A. Sayre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the acetabulum. I say loosely, because it evidently serves more as a means of support to the interarticular vessels than as a ligament proper to the joint. The head of the femur and the cotyloid cavity are covered with a cartilage, of incrustation, except at those points that give attachment to the ligamentum teres, and at a small depression in the cotyloid cavity, which contains sebaceous matter, and i3 known as the fundus acetabuli. This joint is provided with an extensive synovial mem- brane, which invests the head of the femur and the liga- mentum teres, and is reflected upon the internal surface of the acetabulum and the capsular ligament. The hip-joint, in common -with other joints of the body, is subject to a variety of pathological conditions; but I propose to con- fine my remarks at this time to that special, arthritic con- dition which is known, par excellence, as morbus coxarius. The nature and causes of this disease have been of late years a matter of much discussion with the profession, the great majority regarding the disease as connected by neces- sity with, and originating in, and from, the strumous dia- thesis ; that scrofula and hereditary syphilis are the nidus whence this disease alone can arise. Hut this is a decid- edly erroneous view of the truth; a view that is being rapidly dissipated by constantly developing facts. That morbus coxarius may arise in children whose constitutions have been vitiated by the sins of their ancestors, no one will attempt to deny ; for such children are evidently more liable to the disease than those are who stand upon a firmer constitutional basis. But that morbus coxarius may arise in a child whose constitution is uncontaminated by hereditary taint, and who is perfectly healthy, the obser- vations of every day fully substantiate. I believe that many have attributed the source of this disease to a stru- mous origin, simply from the appearance of the patient, whose emaciated spanmmic condition is regarded as the cause, when it is in reality the result of the disease. I have seen children of perfectly healthy constitutions, in whom the disease arose from an evident traumatic cause, so reduced in the course of a few months by the pain and sleeplessness attending the disease, as to present in a very marked degree, appearances which strongly simulate the strumous cachexia. And I have seen robust health and the ruddy cheek restored to these same children by timely surgical aid, together with proper constitutional treatment.