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THE OPERATIVE TREATMENT OF SPINAL CURVATURE.
553 I
is outside the province of the charitable healer. distortion completely, and the other being pliable, so as to The close connexion between illegitimacy, conceal- be available when the correction of the deviation is only ment of birth, and infanticide needs no explanation. partial. The hooks can be applied with the utmost ease. Snch preventive measures as have hitherto been employed to They cause no local disturbance and do not interfere with destroy this mischievous and criminal combination have not the development of the portion of the spine to which they been highly successful. The question remains whether they are applied. should not be supplemented by such public and charitable aid as is plainly needful to secure the safety of mother and A PATIENT FINED FOR LEAVING A HOSPITAL. child at the time of birth. We would answer this question in A PATIENT has lately been fined for leaving a fever the affirmative. Mr. Frederick Lowndes, in a paper recently from typhoid fever. while He had hospital reprinted, advocates a similar view. He proposes that mid- been an inmatesuffering for some time and had apparently wives attached to maternity hospitals should be eligible for been very ill, but during his convalescence he thought attendance on cases of labour without distinction outside the he was well enough to go and so walked out one walls of these hospitals, and that provision should be made without saying anything to anyone. Patients in for the reception of a certain number of necessitous cases day not infrequently practise this mode general hospitals We believe that the adoption of within the wards also. of departure, which probably does little harm to anythese or similar suggestions would neither, in a wellone except the patient himself; but in the case of regulated institution, tend to lower our present standard of infectious hospitals things are different, for unless the morality nor act upon the recipients of charity as an his clothes are properly disinfected disease may and patient encouragement to do evil. A judicious selection of Gases spread to any extent. It is thus right that patients for admission would of course be imperative, and a preshould understand that although they may risk doing harm ference, though not wholly exclusive, would naturally be to themselves leaving hospitals against advice, they must given to married women. Defended by such needful safe- not be allowedby to convey infectious diseases to other people guards, the arrangement suggested should, we consider, who are unfortunate enough to come in contact with work well and should prove in the end to be both a humane them. and a politic measure.
practice
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be
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THE FAMINE IN INDIA.
THE OPERATIVE TREATMENT OF SPINAL CURVATURE.
from the famine districts of India has been so for some weeks that we hope we are now AT the French Academy of Medicine M. Chipault has within a measurable distance of the ending of the acute from the commencement of his researches on the reduction stage. But before the famine passes out of men’s minds or or correction of spinal deviations maintained that the crowded out by the more exciting news of frontier is correction will not be permanent unless the vertebral column it may be well to recall the chief causes of the scarcity is kept in its new position by direct fixation of the spinous of food in the famine-stricken districts. No rain, no food processes ; this applies both to scolioses and to the results of cattle, then starvation of the earth and its dwellers. Pott’s disease. All the authorities on the subject now agree Cattle are fed during the year for three months correspondwith him. M. Regnault has, in the first place, demonstrated to the rainy season upon green grass, and then for the before the Anatomical Society thit Pott’s disease and spinaling four months they are fed upon hay made from this curvatures (scolioses) if left to themselves tend to recovery same grass; but at the end of seven months the supply is by ankylosis of the posterior portions of the vertebrm, and exhausted, and for five months the animals get only millet that metallic fixation of the processes consequently does no stalks as their staple food. It must be remembered more than anticipate in a most logical way the natural prothat beans, barley, and oats grow only in Upper India. In the next place, M. M6nard has cess of recovery. When the supply of rain is abnormally diminished the grass exhibited to the Academy and to the Surgical Society a and hay are deficient, and the cattle die for want of food. series of anatomical preparations which proves the harmless- The dearth of cattle puts an end to all bullock traffic, to the S3 far as the spinal cord ness of the operation for reduction. of grain for human needs, to ploughing, and to all carting and the parts surrounding the vertebral column are concerned, agricultural work. Ploughing in India is done twice a year the correction of these deviations sometimes produces a and is impossible except after the rains, because the ground remarkable change in the configuration and dimensions of at other times is too hard and fissured. In the old days the the space lying in front of the vertebral column, and these natives used to buiy grain for years, and so in famine times anatomical preparations show that for the purpose of renderthere was a hidden store of food for men and cattle, but ing the improvement permanent it is necessary that the to-day the grain is all exported by rail to Bombay, and spine shall be fixed in the new position. Many cases of thence out of India. This is a necessary sequeme of the recent occurrence in which distortion returned when fixamodern extension of railways throughout country districts. tion was neglected after correction of the deformity prove the absolute necessity for fixation of the processes. The attention of surgeons in many different places seems at POLYNEURITIS. the present time to be directed to this subject, and AT the recent meeting at Baden Baden of the South-west M. Chipault has now given an account of the improvements German Society of Neurologists and Alienists1 Professor which he has during the last few months made in the operadirected attention to some points in the symtion originally devised by him. It consisted, as will be Strumpell of this disease. He mentioned in particular remembered, in tying the processes with stout silver wire, a ptomatology the occurrence of double facial palsy in alcoholic neuritis method which is satisfactory and will continue to be This as a result of an affection of both facial nerves. employed under certain circumstances, but is nevertheless condition he had observed on two occasions. He also sometimes difficult of application on account of the referred to a hitherto undescribed affection of the stiffness of the wire. In place of the wire he therenerves which had been described by Professor fore now uses hooks of four different forms, two auditory true nerve deafness on each sideKiesselbach-viz., for lateral deviations and two for antero -posterior off in three weeks, and being replaced by noises passing deviations ; each form of hook is made in two qualities, one 1 Neurologisches Centralblatt, p. 610. being rigid, for use when it has been possible to correct the THE
news
uniformly good
wars,
for
next I
is outside the province of the charitable healer. distortion completely, and the other being pliable, so as to The close connexion between illegitimacy, conceal- be available when the correction of the deviation is only ment of birth, and infanticide needs no explanation. partial. The hooks can be applied with the utmost ease. Snch preventive measures as have hitherto been employed to They cause no local disturbance and do not interfere with destroy this mischievous and criminal combination have not the development of the portion of the spine to which they been highly successful. The question remains whether they are applied. should not be supplemented by such public and charitable aid as is plainly needful to secure the safety of mother and A PATIENT FINED FOR LEAVING A HOSPITAL. child at the time of birth. We would answer this question in A PATIENT has lately been fined for leaving a fever the affirmative. Mr. Frederick Lowndes, in a paper recently from typhoid fever. while He had hospital reprinted, advocates a similar view. He proposes that mid- been an inmatesuffering for some time and had apparently wives attached to maternity hospitals should be eligible for been very ill, but during his convalescence he thought attendance on cases of labour without distinction outside the he was well enough to go and so walked out one walls of these hospitals, and that provision should be made without saying anything to anyone. Patients in for the reception of a certain number of necessitous cases day not infrequently practise this mode general hospitals We believe that the adoption of within the wards also. of departure, which probably does little harm to anythese or similar suggestions would neither, in a wellone except the patient himself; but in the case of regulated institution, tend to lower our present standard of infectious hospitals things are different, for unless the morality nor act upon the recipients of charity as an his clothes are properly disinfected disease may and patient encouragement to do evil. A judicious selection of Gases spread to any extent. It is thus right that patients for admission would of course be imperative, and a preshould understand that although they may risk doing harm ference, though not wholly exclusive, would naturally be to themselves leaving hospitals against advice, they must given to married women. Defended by such needful safe- not be allowedby to convey infectious diseases to other people guards, the arrangement suggested should, we consider, who are unfortunate enough to come in contact with work well and should prove in the end to be both a humane them. and a politic measure.
practice
-
be
___
-
THE FAMINE IN INDIA.
THE OPERATIVE TREATMENT OF SPINAL CURVATURE.
from the famine districts of India has been so for some weeks that we hope we are now AT the French Academy of Medicine M. Chipault has within a measurable distance of the ending of the acute from the commencement of his researches on the reduction stage. But before the famine passes out of men’s minds or or correction of spinal deviations maintained that the crowded out by the more exciting news of frontier is correction will not be permanent unless the vertebral column it may be well to recall the chief causes of the scarcity is kept in its new position by direct fixation of the spinous of food in the famine-stricken districts. No rain, no food processes ; this applies both to scolioses and to the results of cattle, then starvation of the earth and its dwellers. Pott’s disease. All the authorities on the subject now agree Cattle are fed during the year for three months correspondwith him. M. Regnault has, in the first place, demonstrated to the rainy season upon green grass, and then for the before the Anatomical Society thit Pott’s disease and spinaling four months they are fed upon hay made from this curvatures (scolioses) if left to themselves tend to recovery same grass; but at the end of seven months the supply is by ankylosis of the posterior portions of the vertebrm, and exhausted, and for five months the animals get only millet that metallic fixation of the processes consequently does no stalks as their staple food. It must be remembered more than anticipate in a most logical way the natural prothat beans, barley, and oats grow only in Upper India. In the next place, M. M6nard has cess of recovery. When the supply of rain is abnormally diminished the grass exhibited to the Academy and to the Surgical Society a and hay are deficient, and the cattle die for want of food. series of anatomical preparations which proves the harmless- The dearth of cattle puts an end to all bullock traffic, to the S3 far as the spinal cord ness of the operation for reduction. of grain for human needs, to ploughing, and to all carting and the parts surrounding the vertebral column are concerned, agricultural work. Ploughing in India is done twice a year the correction of these deviations sometimes produces a and is impossible except after the rains, because the ground remarkable change in the configuration and dimensions of at other times is too hard and fissured. In the old days the the space lying in front of the vertebral column, and these natives used to buiy grain for years, and so in famine times anatomical preparations show that for the purpose of renderthere was a hidden store of food for men and cattle, but ing the improvement permanent it is necessary that the to-day the grain is all exported by rail to Bombay, and spine shall be fixed in the new position. Many cases of thence out of India. This is a necessary sequeme of the recent occurrence in which distortion returned when fixamodern extension of railways throughout country districts. tion was neglected after correction of the deformity prove the absolute necessity for fixation of the processes. The attention of surgeons in many different places seems at POLYNEURITIS. the present time to be directed to this subject, and AT the recent meeting at Baden Baden of the South-west M. Chipault has now given an account of the improvements German Society of Neurologists and Alienists1 Professor which he has during the last few months made in the operadirected attention to some points in the symtion originally devised by him. It consisted, as will be Strumpell of this disease. He mentioned in particular remembered, in tying the processes with stout silver wire, a ptomatology the occurrence of double facial palsy in alcoholic neuritis method which is satisfactory and will continue to be This as a result of an affection of both facial nerves. employed under certain circumstances, but is nevertheless condition he had observed on two occasions. He also sometimes difficult of application on account of the referred to a hitherto undescribed affection of the stiffness of the wire. In place of the wire he therenerves which had been described by Professor fore now uses hooks of four different forms, two auditory true nerve deafness on each sideKiesselbach-viz., for lateral deviations and two for antero -posterior off in three weeks, and being replaced by noises passing deviations ; each form of hook is made in two qualities, one 1 Neurologisches Centralblatt, p. 610. being rigid, for use when it has been possible to correct the THE
news
uniformly good
wars,
for
next I