Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/115

 that can be hoped for, is the gradual recovery, in part, if not entirely, of the freedom of rotation, as well as flexion and extension of the head; and this, I trust, we shall be able to accomplish, as there exists no present indication of pressure on the medulla spinalis, and nothing to denote the slightest cerebral affection. I have endeavoured to describe this case more fully, because, though not more fatal, perhaps, than some other forms of scrofula, yet it is confessedly much rarer; and it cannot be denied that affections of the cervical vertebræ, perhaps from their infrequency, are less understood than those of the dorsal or lumbar vertebrae; and it is rather surprising that, among so many volumes of interesting information on structural derangement of the spinal marrow, and its osseous investment, the attention of so few pathologists has been directed to the cervical section, and I urge this the more strongly, from a conviction that a better knowledge of this part, and especially of the share which the nerves it supplies have in producing or influencing certain spasmodic affections, incidental to infants and children, as well as adults, will prove of the highest importance in improving our treatment of so distressing a class of diseases. There is no part upon which the practitioner is in the more frequent habit of ordering a blister to be applied, and none, perhaps, where more marked benefit has followed its application.

Though it has been usually considered that phthisis pulmonalis is the effect of tubercular development in the pulmonary structure, and that hæmoptysis is among its premonitory symptoms, yet hæmorrhage from the lungs rarely occurs in very young children.