A probationary essay, on the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human spine; submitted ... to ... the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh / [Robert Knox].

Knox, Robert, 1791-1862.

Date:: 1825

Credit: A probationary essay, on the causes and treatment of lateral curvature of the human spine; submitted ... to ... the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh / [Robert Knox]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Galen, an accurate anatomist and observer, expressly states, that nurses alter much the form of the chest in children *, by tight bandaging. We observe this, he continues, in young girls, “ to whom their nurses are anxious to give a greater develop¬ ment to the hips and loins, so that they shall exceed the chest in bulk, by encircling the latter with tight bandages, and compressing and straitening the parts about the scapulae and thorax, by which it happens, that, as the bandages are not all equally tight, the breast either projects, or the parts toward the spine protrude, and become gibbous j\” Such was the opinion of Galen ; and although w7e can¬ not doubt for a moment the inaccuracy of his views as to the real causes of the lateral deformity, we may feel assured, that tight swathing of the thorax, such as described by him, is calculated to injure its contents, and to do irreparable mischief to the con¬ stitution. As lateral curvatures are intimately connected * In prima Educatione. t Most mechanics who exercise sedentary trades, and all those confined to the desk from their earliest years, are more or less deformed by lateral curvature. The male chest is ne¬ ver, so far as I know, exposed in childhood to be swathed with bandages, this folly being reserved in the present age for the adult$