A letter addressed to Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, bart. : containing observations and strictures upon certain parts of his Lecture on spinal complaints / by Edward Harrison.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter addressed to Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, bart. : containing observations and strictures upon certain parts of his Lecture on spinal complaints / by Edward Harrison. 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.

    18/52 (page 10)
    stand how this extensive and complicated distortion could have arrived at its present alarming height. We have further to remark, that the right scapula rises more than two inches above the dip or hollow, and is more elevated by an inch than the left. Taking it for granted, that the spine had actually moved out of its original place in the back to the distances mentioned, we have yet to inquire, by what agency these extraordinary removals are effected. Had the case above described been a solitary instance of the kind, it would have afforded greater scope for speculation and controversy ; other similar examples might have been called for to establish the fact. Happily no such difficulty presents itself on this occasion. Numerous lateral and protuberant gibbosities, of equal magnitude, may be seen in my collection, some of which will soon be communicated to the public. In the mean time, I wish to refer my readers, should they be desirous of additional testimonies, to the histories and prints* explanatory of the deformities in the cases of Mary Rafter, Mr. George Andrews, and Miss Tar- rant. In none of them had the vertebras protruded strictly backwards, there is a little obliquity in all, nor have I met with a single example where the vertebrae were driven immediately outwards, or sideways- The deviation is always inwards or outwards, and this varies consider- ably in different protuberances. Sometimes the curvature is almost exactly backwards, at other times it is nearly lateral, but never entirely either one or the other. My attention was forcibly drawn to this circumstance at an early period of my inquiries, and I have had them confirmed on so many occasions, that I have long entertained an opinion, that the projecting vertebrae are constantly extruded in a slanting direction. This neces- sarily gives them a twist, or rotatory movement. Dr. Dods, perceiv- ing this irregularity, was led to believe that it proceeded from some anomalous muscular action; whereas the appearance is wholly occa- sioned by the manner of the vertebral presentation. I have, accord- ingly, found it sometimes much more considerable than at others. Whatever may be the true cause of distortion, it seems to me, that the affected vertebra? assume an oblique direction, because they are constrained equally by the spinous and transverse processes, with their ligamentary connexions, from pi’otruding immediately either backwards or sideways. Having, I think, proved that a simple twist or partial turn of the * For particulars, I refer to my “ Pathological and Practical Observations on Spinal Complaints,” where they are fully explained.