Selections from the clinical works of Duchenne / Translated and edited by G.V. Poore.

  • Duchenne, G.-B. (Guillaume-Benjamin), 1806-1875.
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selections from the clinical works of Duchenne / Translated and edited by G.V. Poore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    The following is a resume of investigations which are set forth at length in my Physiologie des Mouvements (1868, Part II.*, chap, xi., p. 701) :— 1. The muscular bundles which form the sacro-lumbalis and the longissimus dorsi, and which are fixed above to the four or five lower ribs, and the transverse processes of the lumbar vertebrae have the same action on these vertebra?, giving them an oblique movement of extension and flexion to the same side; in other words, they are extensors and lateral flexors of the lumbar and lower dorsal vertebrae. Physiologically they form a single muscle, which might be called the superficial spino-lumbalis. By the combined action of the muscles of the two sides direct extension of the lumbar and lower dorsal vertebra? is produced. 2. Diemerbroeck and Winslow have shown that under the name sacro-lumbalis four distinct muscles have been confounded. Electrical experiment shows that these muscles, which form the superficial layer of the spinal muscles, ought to be divided, physiologically, into the superficial lumbar and superficial dorsal, because they can be made to contract independently of each other, and in certain attitudes of the trunk they are seen to contract, producing lumbar and dorsal curves in opposite directions (a false physiological scoliosis), and because clinical observation affords frequent examples of atrophy on one side or both, sometimes of the dorsal muscle and sometimes of the lumbar. Without this independence of the lumbar and dorsal spinal muscles the S curve of scoliosis could not be produced. 3. Contrary to the opinion of anatomists in general, none of the bundles of the sacro-lumbalis or longissimus dorsi have any appreciable rotatory action on the vertebrae under normal cir- cumstances. 4. The essential rotator of the vertebrae , is the semi-spinalis (transversaires epineux), which I shall call, to distinguish from the preceding, the deep spinal muscle. Acting unilaterally it extends feebly, but when both sides contract together they extend forcibly. 5. The degree of obliquity of the pelvis, and consequently of the sacro-lumbar curve, depends upon the balance between the power of the extensors of the lumbar and last dorsal vertebrae and the flexors.