The mechanical treatment of angular curvature or, Pott's disease of the spine : read before the New York State Medical Society, at its fifty sixth annual meeting, at Albany, Feb. 3d, 4th, and 5th, 1863, and printed in the Society's transactions / by Charles Fayette Taylor.

  • Taylor, Charles Fayette, 1827-1899.
Date:
[1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mechanical treatment of angular curvature or, Pott's disease of the spine : read before the New York State Medical Society, at its fifty sixth annual meeting, at Albany, Feb. 3d, 4th, and 5th, 1863, and printed in the Society's transactions / by Charles Fayette Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    6/52
    own shoulders to the blacksmith might be well enough, if this person were a pathologist and anat- omist as well as a mechanic, but as unfortunately that is never the case, the only alternative would seem to be for the doctor to control the mechani- cal part of the treatment himself. The mechanic may assist the surgeon as the nurse does the phy- sician, but the one should never take the other's proper place. This would seem to be the more necessary since no two cases are mechanically alike, and no instrument, no matter how well adapted to one case, will necessarily be proper for another. Simply to apply an instrument, even a good one, is not enough; it should have a defi- nite object, and be mechanically, anatomically, and physiologically adapted to each particular case; if it fail in any of these it will be inef- fectual. There are many excellent medicines, but they must be given according to specific in- dicatious or they are worse than useless. Intrinsic excellence is of no avail without proper adapt- ation. These observations must be allowed; for exten- sive acquaintance among this class of cases has forced the conviction upon me, that the subjects of Pott's disease really and almost invariably be-