Rational orthopedy, or, The treatment and cure of spinal curvatures and other deviations / by A.M. Bureaud-Riofrey.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rational orthopedy, or, The treatment and cure of spinal curvatures and other deviations / by A.M. Bureaud-Riofrey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    in the human body; the muscle that is shortened, becoming contracted, opposes a resistance to the straightening of the column. What would the most common sailor do to redress the inclined mast ? If the cord that is drawn be too weak to bring; the mast in the perpendicular line, the sailor would un- doubtedly employ an auxiliary cord. Such is the first object of the rational method of orthopedy in incipient deviations. When there is alteration in the cartilages, if it be supposed that the muscles alone will surmount the material obstacle caused by the cuneiform develop- ment of that cartilage, more is expected than nature can perform ; for we must overcome the weakness of the muscles, the obstacle of the unequal develop- ment of the inter-vertebral cartilage, and the con- stant attraction of the body to the earth. In a con- firmed deviation, with alteration of the cartilages, the upper part of the column is placed on an inclined plane; and that inclination of the mast, while the basis does not change, will produce the elongation of the muscles on one side, and consequently the inequality of forces. What is here said of a cartilage is equally appli- cable to a vertebra. We find in practice and in spinal deviations frequent irregular growth of the vertebrae. If one single vertebra is unequal—if it is not level—as every vertebra serves as a basis to the vertebrae, or to the mast placed above, there