Peculiar form of spina bifida, with imperforation of the duodenum and rectum / by J.B.S. Jackson.

  • Jackson, J. B. S.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Peculiar form of spina bifida, with imperforation of the duodenum and rectum / by J.B.S. Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    fibrous-looking cord was seen to run from the excrescence to the termination of the spinal canal. This canal being laid open from behind, it was found that the spinal marrow was continued in sub- stance downward, and nearly or quite through the sacrum, as it is continued down to the sac in a common case of spina bifida when the malformation is below where the cauda equina is usually form- ed. A small probe passed downward, within the theca, could not be made to enter the cord that seemed to connect the parts within the spinal canal with the cutaneous excrescence. As usually hap- pens in these cases, the posterior lamina? of the last sacral verte- bras were irregularly developed. In connection with this affection of the spine, I wish to refer to the report of two similar cases in the London Medical Times and Gazette (April 17, 1857), in each of which the external tumor, which was of some size, Was successfully removed. The writer remarks upon them as two examples of a condition of things of which, as far as we are aware, no other instances are on record. In the same Journal for April 25th, however, another case is given. I can hardly believe in the great rarity of this malformation, notwithstanding the remark above quoted, and the fact that it certainly has not been noticed in general treatises, so far as I am aware. During a visit to Europe in 1851, I saw several specimens of this affection, as I regarded them, and of which I made memo- randa. One was in the'museum at St. George's Hospital, London; finely dissected, and showing the spinal marrow running down in substance into the sac; and in the same museum was a second spe- cimen, unless there was some error in my notes. In the museum of the College of Surgeons, London, is one in an adult subject. In the Hospital Museum at Vienna is a tumor over the back of the sacrum of a new-born child, and which I supposed to be a case of the same kind, though this view of it was not alluded to in the catalogue. At Prague a specimen was seen, and I had some con- versation upon the subject with Prof. Engel, to whom the idea of this form of spina bifida was new. At Bologna is a dried foetal skeleton; a cyst, nearly as large as the two fists, arises from the bacU of the pelvis, and is marked as a subcutaneous encysted tu- mor. Lastly, in the Hospital Museum at Venice is a solid looking tumor, as large as the head of an adult, and projecting from the back of the pelvis of a nine months foetus. In addition to the above, I have seen the following cases here; and several of them have been seen by different members of the Society:— 1st. A healthy little girl, partially paralyzed; the tumor looked like a female breast, and a cast was taken of it for the Society's Cabinet (850), in 1845. She is now 18 years of age, and has been able to exercise pretty freely about the city; but for the last few months has been suffering from a pulmonary affection, that her physician, Dr. C. E. Ware, thinks may perhaps terminate in con- sumption.