The mechanical treatment of angular curvature, or, Pott's disease of the spine : read before the New York State Medical Society at its fifty-sixth annual meeting, at Albany, Feb. 3d, 4th, and 5th, 1863, and printed in the society's transactions / by Charles Fayette Taylor.

  • Taylor, Charles Fayette, 1827-1899.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mechanical treatment of angular curvature, or, Pott's disease of the spine : read before the New York State Medical Society at its fifty-sixth annual meeting, at Albany, Feb. 3d, 4th, and 5th, 1863, and printed in the society's transactions / by Charles Fayette Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    true, we have cases of caries of the vertebrae where the osseous structure seems to be primarily affected, as we have caries of the lower jaw and other bones; but I believe such cases to be very rare. Indeed, in my experience, cases of original caries of the vertebrae do not amount to one in fifty; and where this does happen, I believe such cases gene- rally prove fatal; so that this fact may have brought a disproportionally large number of specimens of original caries of the vertebrae to the hospital, and thence to the demonstrator's table. But it still remains true, that of the affection which produces the distortion of the spine known as the angu- lar curvature, the disease is originally in the in- tervertebral cartilage and on the surfaces of and between the vertebras; and my conclusions, based on nearly one hundred cases, are, that the verte- bras themselves are not generally at first affected, nut that the disease is communicated to them, after many months, where the inter-vertebral sub- stance has become absorbed and the osseous tis- sue of two or more vertebras is made to bear pressure and concussion without the intervention of the elastic cartilage. That the vertebras them- selves do finally become diseased is certain, but even when they are almost entirely absorbed,