A case of spondylolisthesis, with description of the pelvis / by J. Whitridge Williams.

  • Williams J. Whitridge.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of spondylolisthesis, with description of the pelvis / by J. Whitridge Williams. 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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    of the intervertebral cartilages and the various ligaments would not permit a forward displacement of the entire last lumbar vertebra, so long as the articulations between its lower articular processes and the upper articular processes of the sacrum were preserved. And he stated “ That it is impossible for the fifth lumbar to be displaced forward as long as these processes remain intact, and it can only occur as a result of pathological changes by which the articular pro- cesses of one or other vertebra are destroyed or broken off; or by the upper articular processes of the sacrum becoming so widely spread apart thnt those of the last lumbar can pass between them; or, finally, by the articular processes of the last lumbar being completely dislocated over the tips of the sacral processes. A further possibility for the displacement of the body of the last lumbar over the anterior surface of the first sacral vertebra may be afforded by a general increase in the size of the intervertebral arch or the neural canal, by which the lower articular processes become so far removed from the body of the vertebra that it can slide forward with- out impairing the integrity of the joints between the articular processes.” Lambl, in his monograph upon the subject in 1858, thor- oughly reviewed the work of his predecessors and personally examined the pelves which they had described, and concluded, as the result of his studies, that the cause of the deformity in the Prague and Munich pelves was to be found in an acces- sory and rudimentary sixth lumbar vertebra, which was developed only in its posterior portion, and which was inter- polated between the fifth lumbar and first sacral vertebrae in such a manner as to facilitate the dislocation of the inferior articular processes of the former over the tips of the superior articular processes of the latter. In the other three pelves, which had been described up to that time, he demonstrated a marked enlargement of the neural canal and a lengthening and thinning of the iuterarticular portion of the fifth lumbar vertebra, which readily explained the production of the