Mollities ossium : (malakosteon, osteo-malacia, osteo-sarcosis, Knochen-Erweichung, rachitismus adultorum, rickets, or softening of the bones in the adult) / by Joseph Jones.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mollities ossium : (malakosteon, osteo-malacia, osteo-sarcosis, Knochen-Erweichung, rachitismus adultorum, rickets, or softening of the bones in the adult) / by Joseph Jones. 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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    ably, after which the swelling went off; but her limbs were so weak that she could not stand upon her feet. In about six months after her last lying-in her pains returned worse than before; and about the same time an abundance of white chalky sediment appeared in her urine, and the forefinger of her right hand was observed to be distorted towards the little finger, which was the first appearance of the dissolution that ensued. Soon after, the lower extremities began to turn upwards gradually, and almost in a parallel line with her body, and con- tinuing till, in nine months, her lower limbs were turned upwards. All the bones were affected, especially the thorax, which had lost its natural form and capacity, and she was altogether miserably distorted. This miserable state was attended with exquisite pains, and according to the seat of them the patient used to say, “Now, such a part works.” Sometimes they abated, and then she felt so sore as not to bear being touched ; and during this ease from her pains, a quantity of the aforesaid sediment passed by urine, though little or none passed during her sufferings. It was quite cretaceous, and, reduced into a fine powder, fermented gently with acids. She could bear no covering but a few napkins, both from inward heat, and to avoid loading her breast. Notwithstanding her preter- natural posture, the evacuations by stool and urine were regularly and easily performed. Her flesh seemed dead and oedematous, the skin rough and scaly, so that a mortification was often apprehended. She had a cough, a laborious respiration, and sometimes a spitting of blood, from the coarctation of her breast, all its bones plying inwardly. She was capable of no other motion than turning her head on both sides, stirring her left arm in the shoulder-joint only, and separating her fingers, but not bending them. She had her menses regularly till about three months before her death. She generally had a low fever, inward heat, sweats, and restlessness. Her fever ran very high in August, attended with delirious head- ache, raving, and subsultus tendinum. A little before her death, came on a deafness, a dimness of sight, a scalding of her eyes, aud a constant dropping; violent pains in her head—-in short, a great weakness in all the organs, which showed how much the head was then affected. The distortion of her limbs went on so fast in August and Sep- tember that almost every day something new was observed; espe- cially the left foot, during that time, came down gradually near