Spinal diseases, both structural and functional : their causes and treatment / by Usher Parsons.

  • Parsons, Usher, 1788-1868.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Spinal diseases, both structural and functional : their causes and treatment / by Usher Parsons. 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.)

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    castors or swinging wheels under each post—vvhicli would enable the patient, with the aid of a stad', to roll about the room. Or iho chair bottom might rest on the axle of two wheels of two or three feet diameter, and having a third small one behind the chair to sup- port and steady it. The patient might roll such a chair about in any direction by turning the two wheels with the hands applied to their rims. Such chairs are conimonly used by patients affected with palsy, but have not, to my knowledge, ever been connected with a suspensory apparatus like Kissam's chair. GueHn's Bed for Sigmoid Flexion and Extension. The author commences his description of this by remarks on the various European machines that had preceded, and admits that they did good to some extent. He then enters on a mathematical calcu- lation of the force of traction necessary to reduce a curve when ap- plied at the head and heels, and at the two extremities of the spine by fixing the head and shoulders and drawing as directed in using several beds, lie concludes that 83 per cent, of the tractile force is expended in stretching the vertebrae one from the other by overcom- ing the resisting ligaments, muscles and fibro-cartilages which unite them, and that the effect of a given force of extension in diminishing the curve lessens continually, till it finally becomes inoperative be- fore the spine is straightened, and that hence arises the difficulty complained of by many authors of removing the last degrees of spi- nal curvature. The ill effects of such strong extension are weakness of the bonds of union of the vertebrae, and a tendency to relapse into a still greater deformity. Besides which, the great efforts made to remove the last degrees of deformity have also the tendency to efface the natural curvatures of the column as presented in profile, which are necessary to the firmness of standing, and to the graceful figure which should mark the female form. He begins his description by comparing the curved spine to a staff with a bend in it, and proposes to straighten it on the same principle, not by pulling lengthwise at each end as is usually done with a curv- ed spine, but as he would straighten the staff by seizing fast the two ends with the hands and pulling the convexity of the curve against the bent knee, so would he fasten the spine in a straight horizontal position, and bend the trunk in a direction opposite the curve by fix- ing a firm prop against the prominent convexity and bending the body against it by force applied above and below it. Furthermore, as he would in straightening the staff bend it beyond a straight line,