Essays on the treatment of deformities of the body / by Frederic R. Fisher.

  • Fisher, Frederic R.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the treatment of deformities of the body / by Frederic R. Fisher. 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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    leans to the unaffected side and supports himself chiefly on the corresponding leg; by such means an endeavour is made to convey the weight of the body to the sound portion of the column.* Again, the patient still further attempts to relieve his spine of the burden it has to bear by transferring this to some other part of the body. In cases of cervical disease the head is supported by placing the hand under the chin. Where the upper dorsal vertebraB are affected the weight of the shoulders will be sustained by placing the hands on the hips. When the lower dorsal or lumbar vertebrge are the seat of mischief the hands will be placed on the thighs. In the earlier stages of disease these attempts to take off pressure from the affected bones will be made only when the patient is fatigued, but in the advanced state of the affection he never moves without giving supplementary aid to his weakened spine. This disease of the spine varies greatly in the course which it runs in different subjects. Usually it is slow in its progress, and is justly classed as a chronic affection; not unfrequently, however, it advances with great rapidity—four, five, or more vertebras being quickly involved. A short time since a young gentleman consulted me on account of a swelling which had appeared in the right lumbar region, this proved to be an abscess connected with disease of the dorsal vertebrae, and although projec- tion of the arches of the affected bones had existed, and been noticed for more than two years, yet this gentleman had pursued the ordinary athletic amuse- * See Fig. 3, p. 40. .