Contributions to the pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of angular curvature of the spine / by Benjamin Lee.

  • Lee, Benjamin, 1833-1913.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the pathology, diagnosis, and treatment of angular curvature of the spine / by Benjamin Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    25/152 (page 11)
    cally, NOT for pain or tencleraess along the course of the spine; for if there is one law of this disease more fixed than the positive one which I have been affirming, it is the negative one that its earlier stages are not accompanied by pain at the seat of disease, or tenderness on pressure over the spinous pro- cesses. If, therefore, the physician relies upon this, I believe universally admitted, sign, he will be dis- appointed in his investigation, and will lose pre- cious time. Lesions involving nervous centres express them- selves often, perhaps usually, through the general system rather than locally. Let him, therefore, carefully scan the carriage and gait of his patient. If he turn the toes in, if he hold the trunk slightly- bent forward and rigid as though apprehensive of a concussion or jar, if he refuse to bend the back in. stooping to touch the floor, then there is undoubt- edly mischief going on between some of the verte- brae. But he may not yet feel satisfied without some ocular demonstration. Let him then strip the patient's back, and place him in a good light. Let him examine first laterally. If he find at any point in the spine an angle, not necessarily a pro- jection, but simply an angle, in place of the normal curve, he has found the seat of disease. This fail-