Osteo-Malacia. 221 



(h.) Osteo-Malacia. 



52. Skeleton affected with MoUities Ossium.— Skeleton 

 of an adult woman, described by Sir Charles Bell, as follows, 

 viz. : — 



"A skeleton of great value. In procuring this skeleton I lost my- 

 self for two hours, and found myself at two o'clock in the morning in the 

 court before Pennycuick House. 



" This skeleton differs from the others, being distorted by the disease 

 called mollitks ossium. In this woman the disease continued for many 

 years. It was attended with incessant pain in the bones, and a deposition 

 of the phosphate of lime from the urine ; but what was most remarkaljle 

 in the case, was the many children she had, with increasing difficulties in 

 the labours, until at length the bones of the pelvis were so closed that it 

 was necessary to perform the Csesarean section upon her. 



' ' She had a cross-birth, the belly of the child protruding. She had a 

 child with a dangerous flooding. She had a child brought away by 

 embryulcio and the crotchet. The disease proceeded, and the distortion of 

 the pelvis increased. She became pregnant again, and it was necessary 

 to bring the child away piecemeal. In this operation the surgeon seems 

 to have conducted himself with great good sense, dexterit}', and persever- 

 ance. His strength was exhausted by the exertion, so that for two days 

 after the operation his hands and arms were benumbed. She suffered 

 also in this painful operation, and Avas left for dead, and was long 

 insensible, so that they were about to prepare her death-clothes. 



" She recovered and became a seventh time pregnant. The surgeon 

 who had previously attended her now refused to attempt the extraction of 

 . the child by the crotchet. The disease in the meantime had made 

 progress, and the pelvis was much more distorted. When I examined 

 her on the approach of labour, the womb hung forward, so that the 

 integuments of the belly made a tumour like a great scrotal hernia 

 betwixt the thighs. On examination per vaginam, the promontory of the 

 sacrum presented in the middle of the passage, and only one finger could 

 be passed through the pelvis, with which nothing could be felt. As for 

 the child, it lay in a manner out of the pelvis. (For a full account of the 

 case and operation, see the fourth volume of the Medico-Chirurgical 

 Transactions.) The mother died, but the child lived, being the only one 

 out of seven that was born alive. 



"Dissection. — Two large masses of coagula lay in the belly. The 

 cavity of the womb was filled with blood. Strings of coagula reached 

 from the mouths of the sinuses of the womb to these coagula, as if the 

 streaming blood had been arrested and coagulated while flowing. The 

 uterus was not contracted and the edge of the incision into it was everted, 

 as if paralytic, with the mouths of the vessels open upon it. She died of 

 haemorrhage. 



'^Description of the Skeleton. — The bones Avere all soft, 



