A probationary essay, on the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human spine; submitted ... to ... the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh / [Robert Knox].

  • Knox, Robert, 1791-1862.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A probationary essay, on the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human spine; submitted ... to ... the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh / [Robert Knox]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    larly during the last century, by those whose writings have done honour to the profession. Hippocrates, though practising amongst a race devoted to gymnas¬ tics, which they cultivated both as a civil and reli¬ gious duty imposed on them, and who must have been generally free from such deformities, yet mentions them frequently in his works, describing them with that masterly brevity peculiar to himself. He treats first of curvatures generally, without any distinct reference to their true cause, a mode which the ad¬ vanced state of anatomical and pathological know¬ ledge renders unnecessary for us to adopt. His method, though deduced from simple observation, / unaided by dissection, is clear and precise. He briefly mentions those cases of curvature of the spine, originating in disease and bad habits *, and next speaks more in detail of those displace- ments of the vertebrae occasioned by a fall or blow, or other accident: he promises to treat specially of lateral curvatures, and of those arising from disease, in a future part of his writings; but it would seem that this treatise, if it ever existed, has perished f. * Quosdam etiam in id vitium compellit una cum morbo habitus ille quo jacere consueverunt.—Hipp. De Artie. Part. + See his works generally, and more particularly the Book entitled “ De Artie. Part.”