Practical observations on the prevention, causes, and treatment of curvatures of the spine : with an etching and description of an apparatus for the correction of the deformity / by Samuel Hare.

  • Hare, Samuel, 1783-1867.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the prevention, causes, and treatment of curvatures of the spine : with an etching and description of an apparatus for the correction of the deformity / by Samuel Hare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Vlll PREFACE. of the patients who have been under his care. Having had, in the course of a long continued practice, (more than forty years having elapsed since he first entered the profession,) abundant reason to conclude that his opinions and consequent mode of treatment are founded upon correct principles; and being able, moreover, to record what may be considered surprising instances of success, even in cases of the worst description, he is led to conclude that it would be neglecting an obvious duty, were he longer to refrain from giving them publicity. Some of the most important of these cases are detailed in the course of the volume, and he is inclined to anticipate, that they will be perused with some degree of interest by the profession, and also by those who are suffering from the baneful effects to which they refer. In treating of the causes of distortion, he has endeavoured to impress upon the minds of his readers, the indisputable fact, that the principal source of the production of one species of the disease, and that the most common, (the lateral curvature,) is to be attributed to the improper adaptation of modern female attire, and more especially to the injurious pressure occasioned by the excessive constriction of corsets. It is to be hoped, that the repeated admonitions and warnings which have, from time to time, been given by medical men, on the pernicious tendency of the prevailing custom of tight lacing, will, at length, have some effect in opening the eyes of young females and their mothers to the danger of the practice. In the chapter on Treatment, which will be regarded as an