Spondylitis, its symptoms and diagnosis / by Robert Jones and John Ridlon.

  • Jones, Robert, 1857-1933.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Spondylitis, its symptoms and diagnosis / by Robert Jones and John Ridlon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    infectious disease, and may be dependent, primarily, upon their bacilli; but however it begins, or whatever be its specific origin, the symptoms presenting and the indications for treatment are practically almost identical, and all cases sooner or later show evidences of the presence of the tubercular bacillus. The disease may perhaps commence in any of the connective tissues composing the spinal column, but there is little satisfactory evidence to show that it ever begins elsewhere than in the cancellous tissue, or upon the anterior aspect, of the vertebral bodies. Very rarely has the disease been found so Fig. 2.—Foci of disease starting in anterior part of vertebral lobes. “ Die Tuberkulose tier Knocken und Gelenke” (Krause). placed as to render it a fair assumption that its origin was either in the interver- tebral discs, the laminae, articular facets, or processes (fig. 2). In traumatic cases the early symptoms vary with the injury received ; the late symptoms are those of an ordinary tubercular case. Spondylitis arising without assignable cause in very young children, cases of multiple joint disease, where spondylitis is present at two points separated by one or more healthy vertebrae, or co-existing with disease at some other joint, and spon- dylitis in cases notoriously syphilitic, may be suspected of owing their origin to sy- philis rather than to tubercle, and suitable for the admin- istration of large doses of mer- cury and iodide of potash. It is only in the improve- ment which follows this treatment that they mate- rially differ from the ordi- nary tubercular cases. Those which follow scarlet fever, measles, etc., show no pecu- liarities except a jironeness to early suppuration. The