The first report of the Society for the Treatment and Attendance of Poor Persons Afflicted with Diseases and Distortions of the Spine, Chest, Hips, &c.

  • Verral Charitable Society (London, England)
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first report of the Society for the Treatment and Attendance of Poor Persons Afflicted with Diseases and Distortions of the Spine, Chest, Hips, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    restoration of the form cannot, of course, be expected, but it has been found that, without interfering with the progress of union which is so necessary for the cure of the diseased bones, the modified and cautious employment of the prone position has most essentially contributed to its improvement. Of this, or rather of all these benefits, liichard Bowen affords a remarkable instance. From a fine young man, living as footman in a noble family, he was reduced to a wretched state of deformity and feebleness by psoas abscess, connected with caries of some of the spinal bones, lie had been the inmate of Hospitals; he had been for two summers a patient of the Margate Sea-bathing Infirmary, but from year to year the disease proceeded, until it almost bowed him down to the earth. Blisters, issues, &cc., had been use- lessly, perhaps injuriously, applied. Nothing appeared to do him good, until about a twelvemonth ago, a favourable change took place in his general health. He was then congratulated by an eminent surgeon, who had sometimes kindly seen and prescribed for him, upon the prospect there was of his being speedily cured. But what would have been the cure? When, in September last, he became a patient of the Society, the abscess was still discharging, and there was considerable pain and tenderness about the diseased bones. But the most remarkable feature in his case was the form of the spine, which had become curved and bowed forward throughout its whole length, so as to form a considerable segment of a circle. He could not walk without support; he could not even raise his head so as fairly to look any person in the face. As he was a single man, and without a home, Mr.* Verral took him into his house, that his treatment might be the more effectually pursued. In a few weeks his health and strength seemed completely re-established. The pain and tenderness gradually subsided. In four months the discharge from the abscess entirely ceased, and the improvement in his form is now so great as to astonish every one who previously knew him. Already the general curve of the spine is nearly removed. The anchylosed bones form an angle in the middle of the back, which, under his clothes, becomes from week to week less visible, as the im- provement proceeds. He now stands nearly erect, and, with long crutches to take off the weight of the head and shoulders, he is allowed to walk in the garden for half an hour every day. Mary Ann Heness, Sarah Moorhouse, and Mary Hichen, are deplorable cases of abscess and disease. They are yet far from well, but they have probably been snatched from a premature grave, into which, but for the exis- tence of the Society, they would assuredly long ere this have been hurried by dis- ease, discharge, and excoriation, with their concomitant sufferings and exhaustion. Of disease of the spine in its earlier stages there are a few cases to record. Ann Bass, a married woman, aged 40, had great pain and tenderness, especially in moving, of two of the lumber vertebrae. A fall she had had a few months before appeared to have occasioned the complaint, and which a few weeks of treatment in the prone position entirely removed. The case of Eliza Vickars is especially worthy of notice. She had lain in bed on her back for ten months, in consequence of disease of two or three of the lumber vertebrae, which were exceedingly tender to the touch. She was utterly unable to support herself upright, and the act of moving in or from her bed was productive of extreme pain. Even when lying quiet, the back was constantly painful, and it seemed, as she herself said, “ as if some of the bones were slipping away from the others.” She had been attended by Mr. Malyn, one of the surgeons of the Western Dispensary, who was kind enough to afford her the benefit of his advice and assistance after she was placed on the prone couch. That took place on the 2d of Dec. 1837, but it was some few days before she could bear to remain night and day in the position. After the 12th of December, however, she continued constantly upon it, and the pain and sense of dislocation, which from the first moment were much diminished were speedily removed altogether; the tenderness gradually lessened, and setons or issues, which had been proposed, were rendered unnecessary by the favourable progress of the case. She now moves without pain, and towards the end of March was taken off the couch, and for the first time for a twelvemonth, with the assist- ance of her mother’s arm, was able to walk across her chamber. From lateral curvature of the SPINE, a malady so prevalent at the present day amonst the higher circles, the poor are not altogether exempt. Regardless however, of the mere imperfection of form, as long as it is not accompanied bv absolute disability and disease, the poor do not often, in these cases, seek for