Remarks on the angular curvature of the spine / [William Pirrie].

  • Pirrie, William, 1807-1882.
Date:
[1847]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the angular curvature of the spine / [William Pirrie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    REMARKS ON THE ANGULAR CURVATURE OF THE SPINE. BY WILLIAM PIRRIE, M.I)., REGIUS PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN MARISCHAL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. [Extracted, from the Monthly Journal of Medical Science. I Angular curvature may arise from one or other of the five follow¬ ing causes :— 1st, It may be the consequence of scrofulous caries of the spine. The bodies of the vertebras, from their spongy texture, are pecu¬ liarly liable to this disease. It is unnecessary to trace the progress, or explain minutely the nature of the local changes which precede the occurrence of scrofulous caries. The first deviation from the healthy condition is, that part of the cancellated structure becomes preternaturally vascular; that at an early period the affected part becomes unusually soft from a deficient proportion of earthy matter, and that a thin fluid is deposited in the cancelli. These changes constitute the anatomical characters at an early period of the dis¬ ease. As the disease advances, the bone becomes still softer, and instead of a thin fluid a caseous substance is deposited in the can¬ celli. Sometimes the substance occupies only the cells, while the cancellous structure still remains ; sometimes the cancellous struc¬ ture of a part of the bone is removed, and its place occupied by the caseous substance, and sometimes the whole of the cancellated struc¬ ture of n vertebra has been found to be absorbed, and caseous matter deposited in its stead. I have in my own collection a vertebra, the whole cancellated structure of which has been absorbed, and re¬ placed by caseous matter retained in its place by an exceedingly thin shell of bone. This variety, in the quantity and extent of de¬ posit, corresponds with what is observed in other bones affected with this disease. When the disease, for example, is situated at the joint ends of bones, the deposit is usually very limited ; but in a long bone the same substance is sometimes found to occupy the whole of its interior. I have specimens in which the whole of the femur is occupied with this substance, contained within a very thin encasement, which is formed by the outer part of the original shell EDINBURGH : SUTHERLAND AND KNOX, 58, PRINCES STREET.