The treatment of Spina Bifida by a new method / by James Morton ; with a paper on The pathology of spina bifida by John Cleland.

Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of Spina Bifida by a new method / by James Morton ; with a paper on The pathology of spina bifida by John Cleland. 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.

    71/268 (page 67)
    Very recently, Dr. Mayo Eobsou, of Leeds, has made efforts to revive excision as a mode of cure, and has had successful cases. On March 27th, 1885, he read a paper before the London Clinical Society, entitled, A series of cases of Spina Bifida treated by Plastic Operation. If I correctly understand his mode of operating, it seems to be a combination of ligature with excision. For the prevention of the escape of spinal fluid reliance is placed upon ligature or sutures, which in other hands have not often proved satis- factory. Mr. Eobson's paper appears in the eighteenth volume of the Clinical Society's Transactions. In the Dublin Journal of Medical Science for March, 1886, there appeared A case of Spina Bifida treated by excision by Dr. Thomas Sinclair, Demon- strator of Anatomy, Queen's College, Belfast, which terminated favoui-ably. Omitting details, it may be stated that during its treatment Dr. Sinclair seems to have become satisfied that it contained no nervous matter. Though this case recovered, and remained well three months after, yet Dr Sinclair begins one of his sentences by saying, As a prognosis is nearly all a surgeon can offer to many spina bifida patients, which we cannot but regard as the reverse of a compliment to his own success by excision. Probably he agrees with Erichsen, when he says he has never known any but a fatal result follow the removal of these tumours by ligature, scissors, or knife. Upon this practical point, the reporters of the Committee of the London Clinical Society on Spina Bifida have considered it their duty to say: For reasons which are stated lower doAvn, we are compelled