On the advantages of exercise in some spinal deviations, addressed to Sir Benjamin Brodie ... / by A.M. Bureaud Riofrey.

Date:
[1837]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the advantages of exercise in some spinal deviations, addressed to Sir Benjamin Brodie ... / 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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    should be carefully avoided; in some cases exercise, in others repose; in some, exercise and repose judicously managed; constitutional treatment may also be adviseable; and we must not only know when and how to prescribe, but what is equally essential, we must discern the share to be left to time and nature, and the share to art and science. This discernment is not the privilege of the ignorant, who think that all deviations must be treated in the same manner; un- happily the fatal results are known too late to admit of a remedy. It is not probable that a deviation could be cured by any machine, if the patient be condemned to inactivity, Delpech observed that time and judicious care were requisite to enable the organs to bend to their new state, caused by external agents acting on the bones ; and that violence might produce a morbid excitation; that at all events there should be an elastic agent until the extension cause no pain, which would alsoi prevent danger, owing to the oscillatory returns it allowed. All extension of the spine must be elastic; but it should be remembered that every spine will not bear traction. On the whole, the proper treatment for muscular debility is exer- cise ; during the period of sudden growth, decubitus; unequal development of the fibro cartilages, gymnastics and extension—we might say gymnastics and pressure, with modifications suited to the peculiarity of the case. When deviations are caused by rheumatism, they must be treated as rheumatism, and in the absence of pain, extension is useful ; deformity originating in want of muscular power may be remedied by well directed exercise; if the deformation be caused by rachitism or diseases of the bones, extension and gymnastics are out of the question; traction would bring on death. Deviations produced by scrofula, cannot be cured by machinery, or gymnastics; but by general treatment, by a happy change in the perverted law of nutrition; by the assistance of all physical agents, air, light, good nourishment, proper exercise.* • Education physique des jeune9 fillcs, par Dr. Bureaud Riofrey. Henry Kent Causton, Birchin Lane. Dulau & Co. Bailliere, Regent Street.