Pathological and practical observations on spinal diseases : illustrated with cases and engravings. Also, An inquiry into the origin and cure of distorted limbs / by Edward Harrison.

  • Harrison, Edward.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological and practical observations on spinal diseases : illustrated with cases and engravings. Also, An inquiry into the origin and cure of distorted limbs / by Edward Harrison. 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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    Many things are true, which anatomy, notwith- standing its numerous improvements, has not yet been able to develop. Indeed, few of our medical facts, or pathological principles, were first observed by the anatomist; we are indebted for both to the practical physicians, who first discovered them in their profes- sional attendance upon the sick. My detection of symptoms, and their seat in the spinal column, was first drawn from the same source. Ever since my attention was fixed upon the subject, they have been so constantly observed in practice, that I have no hesitation in pointing them out as uniform in their appearance, and produced, in some way or other, by the distorted figure of the spinal column. It has: happened to me so frequently to remove internal derangements by rectifying the vertebral pillar, that when summoned to patients of this description, I do- not hesitate to predict a complete cure, if the spinal distortion can be removed. Although anatomists may have hitherto failed in their efforts to prosecute ner- vous filaments from the spinal cord into the viscera-, we must not from thence hastily conclude that the communication does not exist. We find little difii- culty in following these nerves from the spinal cord into the very substance of the great sympathetic, or in pursuing other nerves issuing thence to the affected organs. In this way an intermediate connexion is found to obtain between the spinal column and in- ternal parts, sufficient to explain the pathological