The lectures of Boyer, upon diseases of the bones / arranged into a systematic treatise by A. Richerand ; translated from the French by M. Farrell.

Boyer, Alexis, Baron, 1757-1833.

Date:: 1807

Credit: The lectures of Boyer, upon diseases of the bones / arranged into a systematic treatise by A. Richerand ; translated from the French by M. Farrell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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$CHAPTER IV. OF THE FRACTURES OP THE VERTEBR/E. The bones which compose the spine are seldom fractured, because, like other short bones, they resist any violence that might be applied to them, by the equality of their three dimensions. If any great force be applied to the vertebral column, it isapter to 1 acerate the intervertebral cartilages, or to separate them from the vertebrae, than to fracture these bones : they may, however, be frac- tured in the very part against which the force has been immediately applied. The spinal processes which project from the body of the bones is the part most liable to be fractured, because it is that which is weakest and the most superficially situated. But it seldom happens that the frac- ture is limited to a single vertebra ; several - of them are generally fractured at once, and the spinal marrow suffers at the same time a com- motion or contusion to a greater or less degree : and much less danger is to be apprehended from the fracture, than from the lesion of that sub- stance. In fact, every cause that will fracture the$