Mythopoeia

“ The general character of tertiary manifestations may be stated as follows: They attack by preference the tissues derived from the mesoblastic layer of the embryo—the cellular tissue, bones, muscles, and viscera. They are often localised to one particular tissue or organ, such, for example, as the subcutaneous cellular tissue, the bones, or the liver, and they are rarely symmetrical. They are usually aggressive and persistent, with little tendency to natural cure, and they may be dangerous to life, because of the destructive changes produced in such organs as the brain or the larynx. ”

“ Where there are two parallel bones--as in the leg, for example--the growth of the diseased bone may be impaired, and the other continuing its normal growth becomes disproportionately long; less frequently the growth of the diseased bone is exaggerated, and it becomes the longer of the two. In either case, the longer bone becomes curved. An _obliquity_ of the bone may result when one half of the epiphysial cartilage is destroyed and the other half continues to form bone, giving rise to such deformities as knock-knee and club-hand. ”

“ Even a maker of proverbs can tell at a glance that "the legs of the lame are not equal." From the limp, coupled with the direction in which the toe or foot is turned, the tilt of the hips, the part of the foot that strikes first, the presence or absence of pain-lines on the face, a snap diagnosis can often be made as to whether the trouble is paralysis, hip-joint disease, knee or ankle mischief, or flatfoot, as your patient limps across the room. ”

“ The disorder of growth is confined to those elements of the skeleton where a core of bone formed in cartilage comes to be encased in a sheath of bone formed beneath the periosteum. To indicate this abnormality the name _diaphysial aclasis_ has been employed by Arthur Keith at the suggestion of Morley Roberts.
Bones formed entirely in cartilage are exempt, namely, the tarsal and carpal bones, the epiphyses of the long bones, the sternum, and the bodies of the vertebrae. Bones formed entirely in membrane, that is, those of the face and of the cranial vault, are also exempt. ”

“ A very tough skin—a sheathe—surrounds the neck with blood vessels, nerves, muscles, bones, ligaments, fascia, glands great and small, throat and trachea. In bones we find a great canal for spinal cord. It is well and powerfully protected by a strong wall of bone, so no outer pressure can obstruct the flow of passing fluids, to keep vitality supplied by brain forces, but with all the guards given to protect the cord, we find that it can be overcome by impact fluids to such degree as to stop blood and other fluids from supplying lungs and all below. ”

“ Lining the medullary and cancellous cavities is a delicate connective tissue lining, the endosteum, which contains many bone-forming cells, while on the outside of the bone, except at the articular ends, is the periosteum with its outer protective layer and its inner vascular layer containing osteoblasts or bone-forming cells. The periosteum is essential for the growth of new bone where the old bone has died, and if the periosteum is removed from healthy bone the part beneath is liable to die, as it is by the constant growth of the osteoblasts that the bone grows and is renewed. ”

“ It begins at the lower end of the breast-bone and crosses to ribs back and down, in a slanting direction to the third or fourth lumbar vertebra. Like an apron, it holds all that is above it up, such as heart and lungs, and is the fence that divides the organs of the abdomen from the chest. Below it are the stomach, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, womb, bladder; also the great system of lymphatics of the whole blood and nerve supply of the organs and systems of nutrition and life supply. All parts of the body have a direct or indirect connection with this great separating muscle. ”

“ There is no well marked medullary cavity except in the humerus, the radius, the ulna, the femur, the tibia, the fibula and clavicle. The ribs and the phalanges, which in their forms resemble them, have much of the ordinary texture of the cells in their centre, and hardly ever any of that more delicate texture of the cells which occupies the centre of the bones above named, and which is only found in the medullary cavity. ”

“ It consists of two layers, an outer fibrous and an inner cellular layer; the cells, which are called osteoblasts, are continuous with those lining the Haversian canals and the medullary cavity.
The arrangement of the _blood vessels_ determines to some extent the incidence of disease in bone. The nutrient artery, after entering the medullary canal through a special foramen in the cortex, bifurcates, and one main division runs towards each of the extremities, and terminates at the ossifying junction in a series of capillary loops projected against the epiphysial cartilage. ”

“ If, for any reason, bone is put under constant pressure, a certain amount of readjustment of the bony constituents takes place in order to adapt the bone to its altered condition. The most striking example of this sort of atrophy is perhaps the Chinese ladies’ feet, where the bones, being bent into an abnormal position, beginning early in childhood, ultimately show enormous deformity and an entire rearrangement of the trabeculae of the bone. ”

“ Before we treat of the head, we must follow blood from the heart to all organs of the head. Not only look at the pictures in Gray, Morris, Gerrish, or some finely illustrated work on anatomy, but we must apply a searching hand and know to a certainty that the constrictors of neck, or other muscles or ligaments do not pull cervical and hyoid bones so close as to bruise pneumogastric or any other nerves or fibres that would cause spasmodic contraction of digastric, stylo-hyoid or the whole remaining group of neck muscles and ligaments, with which you are or should be very familiar. ”

“ At an earlier stage of the disease, the joint may be rigid from deposition of lymph into the contiguous cellular tissue, and contraction of the muscles.
Purulent matter not unfrequently collects in the substance of the bones, which in all cases ultimately become softened in a remarkable manner. In many subjects, without actual disease of the osseous tissue, the heads of the bones are so altered in consistence, are so deficient of earthy matter, as to be easily cut with a knife. ”

“ Wherever extensive atrophy of bone takes place, microscopic inspection shows such giant cells lying closely adjacent to the trabeculae of the bone which is being resorbed, and the trabeculae in that immediate vicinity slowly disappear under the action of these giant cells. Their action is very similar to the action of giant cells in the soft tissues about absorbable foreign bodies. This process is called lacunar resorption.
In old people the amount of absorption oftentimes is very great ”

“ To illustrate, we will take the lower limb, whether there is lameness, soreness, gouty, rheumatic, neuralgic, swollen, shrunken, feverish, cold, smooth and glassy, sores, ulcers, erysipelas, milkleg, varicose veins, or any defect that the patient may complain of, who is the only reliable book or being of symptomatology. For convenience we will divide that lower limb into five parts, the foot, leg, thigh, pelvis and lumbar region. The patient (symptomatologist) tells us he has a pain in front, center and under part of foot. ”

“ If found normal at shoulder, then go to neck, out of which go all or most of the nerves of the arm; if he finds no lesion or cause equal to the trouble so far, then he has been careless in his search and should go over and over from marrow to periostium of all bones of the neck and head, because there are only five divisions in which a lesion can exist. ”

“ Hence why, when the periosteum is separated from the bone, the dura mater from the internal surface of the cranium, only a few drops of blood escape; why the skin, having hardened like horn, no longer exhibits the rosy tint of the preceding ages, especially of youth; why the section of a bone does not furnish hardly any blood, whilst it was so abundant in the fœtus; why the mucous surfaces look pale, the muscles have a dull colour, &c. All anatomists know that injections succeed less in proportion, as the subjects are more advanced in years; that in extreme old age the trunks alone are filled ”

“ NATURE'S CHEMISTRY.
Osteopathy believes that all parts of the human body do work on chemical compounds, and from the general supply manufacture for local wants; thus the liver builds for itself of the material that [Pg 41] is prepared in its own division laboratory. The same of heart and brain. No disturbing or hindering causes will be tolerated to stay if an Osteopath can find and remove it. We must reason that to withhold the supply from a limb, to wither away would be natural. We suffer from two causes. ”

“ The inner shell of bone, as may be seen in the above sketch, perishes more extensively than the outer; and this arises probably from inflammation of the medullary membrane, in consequence of exposure, or, perhaps, from its being sometimes injured by the operator or assistants seizing the bone rudely to steady the stump, in order to facilitate the ligature of the vessels. In experiments on animals, the disturbance and injury of the medullary membrane is followed by internal necrosis, thickening of the outer living shell, and effusion betwixt the periosteum and bone. ”

“ From what has been said, it is evident that the cartilaginous life can have but little activity, that all the morbid phenomena must be characterized in these organs by a peculiar slowness, and that inflammation, for example, must always have in the cartilages, as in the bones, a chronic progress ”

“ For in many cases of disease the bones in the neighbourhood of the joint are stimulated to an excessive amount of what is in reality Nature's effort at repair, and while the cartilaginous surfaces are denuded of cartilage, soft, and porous, the bones close by are roughened with a stalactitic-looking growth, projecting in knobs and angles. ”

“ Osteopathy attempts to specialize the mechanical principle in dealing with all kinds of curable diseases, acute as well as chronic, graduating pressure, tension, vibration, and all the mechanical forms of physical stimulation, in their application to muscles, bones, blood-vessels, nerves, and organs of the body, so as to gain therapeutic effects. ”

“ In the long bones, the compact texture has a very remarkable thickness in the centre, where it serves the triple purpose, first of protecting the medullary organ, of which it is the covering, then of giving solidity to the bone in this place, which more than the extremities, is exposed to great efforts in locomotion, falls, concussion, &c. and where the bone, traversed only by some very weak fibres of the cells, cannot borrow its resistance but from its external parietes ”

“ In a case of Eve’s the facial hypertrophy extended to the brain.
In the ordinary forms of congenital hypertrophy [138] the size of the part is augmented by an unequally distributed hyperplasia of the skeleton and soft parts. Almost all the cases narrated in detail are of this kind. In nearly all, the arterial supply is proportionate only to the normal size of the part, and the functional capacity (power, sensibility, &c.) , although not seriously altered, is to some extent deteriorated. ”

“ The short, square, and flattened bones of the body, such as those of the wrist, the skull, and the hips, instead of being hollow inside are spongy; and the spaces in the bone-sponge are filled with a soft tissue called the red marrow in which new red and white corpuscles for the blood are born, to take the place of those which die and go to pieces. ”

“ He should let his eye camp day and night on the spinal column; to know if the bones articulate truly in all facets and other bearings, and never rest day or night until he knows the spine is true and in line from atlas to sacrum, with all ribs known to be in perfect union with processes of spine. In reasoning for probable causes of diseases of chest, we are met with the fact that the heart and lungs are housed up, and out of [Pg 70] reach of the hand and eye. We hear a cough, see blood and other substances after they pass out of the lungs ”

“ In course of time the vertebral column becomes rigid, the head is bent forward, the hips are flexed, and abduction and other movements of the arms are limited. The disease progresses by fits and starts, until all the striped muscles of the body are replaced by bone, and all movements, even those of the jaws, are abolished. ”

“ A more serious part of the secondary disease is affection of the deep-seated parts, ligaments, periosteum, and bones. The bones nearest the surface are principally affected: a swelling gradually forms on the tibia or ulna, without discoloration of the integuments, and without pain occurring till after a long time. ”

“ Necrosis, fortunately, seldom occurs in the heads of the long bones, or penetrates the separation betwixt the cancelli of the shaft and the epiphysis. Bits of dead bone in the articular ends, however, very often lead to disease in the joint. ”

“ Hectic supervenes only when the disease is very extensive, and joints become involved. Frequently fresh collections of matter form as each piece of bone approaches the surface. When the effusion of new bone has extended to the neighbourhood of a joint, its motion may be very much impeded, and, from the limb being kept in a state of rest for the cure of the necrosis, anchylosis may even occur. ”