A probationary essay on the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human spine : submitted by authority of the President and his Council, to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh when candidate for admission to their boby / by 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 by authority of the President and his Council, to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh when candidate for admission to their boby / by Robert Knox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    41/64 (page 33)
    walking. Persons so affected, in walking, even very gently, make a sudden spring each time they rise on the left foot, as if simply to propel the body for- wards. But this very peculiar movement is, in fact, made, not to accelerate progression, but to compen- sate for the actual shortness of the left leg, and thereby conceal the rising and falling of that side, which, without this little artifice, would be very ap- parent. In the greatly disproportionate number of persons in whom the superiority of the right arm over the left in energy and actual development was observed to exist, some of the earlier anatomists founded their explanation of the constancy with which late- ral curvatures affect also the right side of the dorsal region, whilst others conjectured and maintained, that the lateral curvature of the spine towards the right side, is owing to the direction given to the spine by the arch of the aorta, and that this ac- counted also for its so great frequency *. But Dr * This almost uniform superiority of the right over the left sides, pervades apparently the whole animal kingdom ; yet the great narwhal, or sea-unicorn, presents a most remarkable instance to the contrary. In this animal, improperly named Unicorn, the left tooth, vulgarly called the Horn, is always larger than the right; sometimes the disproportion is remark- able. K