Selected monographs.

  • New Sydenham Society.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. 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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    that both affections were due to the same specific process, i.e., to Potts' disease, but rather to indicate that spondylizema was a result of a softening or dissolution of the body of the vertebra, and was therefore due to disease of the body of the vertebra, while spondylolisthesis was a result of disease (=ramollissement, softening) of the arch of the vertebra, even if this disease was itself due to an injury. At Friburg, towards the end of September, I received from Professor Frankenhiiuser, to whom I would here express my thanks for his prompt courtesy, the Zurich pelvis for examina- tion. In one half of the specimen I softened off the ligaments, and separated the fourth lumbar vertebra in toto from the fifth, so as to expose the corpus delicti, the fifth vertebral arch, and I removed as far as was necessary and possible the irregular attachments from both halves of the preparation. I found unmistakable traces of a fracture, which I had previously suspected a priori, on either side of the interarticular portion of the fifth arch. The conditions were very similar to those found in Olshausen's pelvis at Halle, in that at Liege, and to those in the B pelvis at Prague, in particular. Without any detailed description of this interesting and fatal Zurich pelvis, I may illustrate the condition of the affected parts, i.e., of the lumbo-sacral symphysis, by a few drawings. The olisthesis had, as is known, reached the stage of spondyloptosis ; the body of the fifth lumbar vertebra lay well within the true pelvis, while the posterior part of its arch, and its isolated and extremely prominent spine, remained in the normal position; the body of the first sacral vertebra has been forced like a wedge into the lumen of the vertebral canal of the last lumbar vertebra, with proportionate enlargement of this lumen from behind forwards, and it is therefore quite evident that the interarticular portions of the arch of the last lumbar vertebra must be lengthened to the same extent that the body has been separated from the posterior transverse part of the arch. In fig. 20 the fifth lumbar vertebra is exposed by taking away the upper part of the vertebral column, and shows such an extension has really taken place. The arch is extremely elongated from behind forwards, the superior or anterior articular process (a) has in fact been separated to the extent of several centimeters from the inferior or posterior articular process (b), corresponding with the olis-