Observations on the causes and early symptoms of defects in the form of the spine, chest, and shoulders, and on the means of correcting them : with remarks on the different methods pursued in this country and on the continent, in the treatment of distortions : being an enlarged edition of the papers lately published in the London Medical Joural / by John Shaw.

  • Shaw, John, 1792-1827.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the causes and early symptoms of defects in the form of the spine, chest, and shoulders, and on the means of correcting them : with remarks on the different methods pursued in this country and on the continent, in the treatment of distortions : being an enlarged edition of the papers lately published in the London Medical Joural / by John Shaw. 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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    becomes older. It often happens that the mother insists that the defect was produced by an illness; it is per- haps so in some cases ; but consequent emaciation may be the cause of the inequality being brought more dis- tinctly into view. This condition of the limb or side does not appear to be similar to that called the blight^ which occurs about the period of weaning. This is generally sudden and attended with partial or total para- lysis of the limb; while in the case before us there are seldom any such symptoms, the limb being often perfect in its functions although small; but when it is very diminutive, the voluntary power is much impaired. There seems to be little doubt that the deficiency in the size of an eye, of one side of the chest, or of a limb, often takes place hi utero. Can any thing be done to remedy the inequality, or to prevent greater deformity taking place ? There are many different degrees of this deficiency: in some, it is at once obvious to the eye; in others, it is so slight that it is scarcely perceptible; and in some cases, when the spine is twisted, it is difficult to determine whether the smallness of the side depends on the ribs being compressed together, or on an actual defect of size. In cases where the difference is very great, little can be done, because the means calculated to increase the size of the small side have an equal or greater effect on the other. When the inequality is in a less degree, much may be done by such exercises as operate especially on the muscles of the small side, and by also taking care that the lumbar part of the spine does not sink; but it is as little to be expected that the two sides shall become equal in size as that a short and diminutive leg can be made equal in length to the other. To attain such a