Orthopaedia, or, A practical treatise on the aberrations of the human form : by James Knight.

  • Knight, James, 1810-1887.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Orthopaedia, or, A practical treatise on the aberrations of the human form : by James Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. This second edition of my treatise on Orthopsedia and aberra- tions of the human form is not to be considered so much a repara- tory of the first edition as including an addenda of useful informa- tion. To the reviewers of my first edition I would beg to express my grateful consideration of their very favorable report of my efforts to introduce subject matter worthy of presenting to the medical profes- sion. Of this character is the entirely new chapter that has been added on the etiology of acute and chronic invasions of the joints. To illustrate more fully the changes described as taking place in the morbid tissues, new engravings and colored plates have been inserted. Constitutional dyscrasia is also made a subject for consideration in this chapter, in which my impressions as to a predisposing tendency to the invasion of joints resulting in chronic synovitis are presented. Eminent professional authority describe struma as existing under two conditions, one with, and the other without tubercle. The dis- tiactive feature to be observed is that patients laboring under joint disease with a tubercular diathesis suffer less pain than those said to be of strumous character without tubercle. Struma without tubercle I consider to be a scorbutic diathesis, and I have presented my views and authority on this subject, which I believe to be a very important one, inasmuch as a proper compre- hension of it enables us to determine a prognosis, as to the result to be anticipated from the expectant or conservative sro-gical treat- ment. Joint lesions in scorbutic subjects I consider amenable to actual cure, while similar invasions in cases of struma with tubercle, are only held in abeyance and are subject to amelioration by treat- ment. The most promising means of rehef in either case is that afforded by the so-called conservative or expectant plan of treatment, which is not merely a masterly non-interference with