. 1. 2. 2. 17. OF IRRITATION. 77 



near the swelled part have been found of great service, as men- 

 tioned in Species 18 of this Genus. This has induced me to 

 propose in curvatures of the spine, to put an issue on the outside 

 of the curve, where it could be certainly ascertained, as the bones 

 on the convex side of the curve must be enlarged; in one case I 

 thought this of service, and recommended the further trial of it. 



In the tendency to curvature of the spine, whatever strength- 

 ens the general constitution is of service; as the use of the cold 

 bath in the summer months. This however requires some re- 

 striction both in respect to the degree of coldness of the bath, 

 the time of continuing in it, and the season of the year. Com- 

 mon springs, which are of forty-eight degrees of heat, are too 

 cold for tender constitutions, whether of children or adults, and 

 frequently do them great and irreparable injury. The coldness 

 of river-water in the summer months, which is about sixty-eight 

 degrees, or that of Matlock, which is about sixty-eight, or of 

 Buxtou, which is eighty-two, are much to be preferred. The 

 time of continuing in the bath should be but a minute or two, 

 or not so long as to occasion a trembling of the limbs from cold. 

 In respect to the season of the year, delicate children should 

 certainly only bathe in the summer months; as the going fre- 

 quently into the cold air in winter will answer all the purposes 

 of the cold bath. 



17. Claudicatio coxaria. Lameness of the hip. A nodding 

 of the thigh bone is said to be produced in feeble children by the 

 softness of the neck or upper part of that bone beneath the car- 

 tilage; which is naturally bent, and in this disease bends more 

 downwards, or nods, by the pressure of the body; and thus 

 renders one leg apparently shorter than the other. In other 

 cases the end of the bone is protruded out of its socket, by in- 

 flammation or enlargement of the cartilages or ligaments of the 

 joint, so that it rests on some part of the edge of the acetabu- 

 lum, which in time becomes tilled up. When the legs are 

 straight, as in standing erect, there is no verticillary motion in 

 the knee-joint; all the motion then in turning out the toes fur- 

 ther than nature designed, must be obtained by straining in some 

 degree this head of the thigh-bone, or the acetabulum, or cavity, 

 in which it moves. This has induced me to believe that this 

 misfortune of the nodding of the head of the bone, or partial dis- 

 location of it, by which one leg becomes shorter than the other, 

 is sometimes occasioned by making very young children stand in 

 what are called stocks; that is with their heels together, and 

 their toes quite out. Whence the socket of the thigh-bone be- 

 comes inflamed and painful, or the neck of the bone is bent 

 downward and outwards, , 



