Hope for Cripples.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 6849, 26 March 1897, Page 4

Hope for Cripples.

Some sensation has been created in Paris (says the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph) by a communication just made to the Academy of Medicine by Dr Calot, who claims to have discovered a cure for hunchbacks -at least, in the case of children where the mischief is in an incipient stage. The announcement was received by the faculty with a considerable spice of scepticism ; but when Dr Calot exhibited a series of photographs illustrating its effect on eight patients there was a revulsion of feeling, and the belief seciT.S now to be entertained that Something can be done after all if the deformity has not gone too far. Dr Calot is 1 practising in a district where this affliction is not altogether rare, and thus he has been led to reflect on the possibility of cure, and, after pondering on the subject, to make experiments which he considers not only promising but successful. The object, of course, is to tiring the spinal column into a straight line. In the case of the children on whom the method was tried, large wadded bandages were applied to the spot and were tiahtened by the operator with the exercise of considerable, but very careful, force. A plaster mould was then affixed and kept on for three or four months, the back being found to be quite flat on its removal. Another apparatus of a similar kind was then put on, and in some instances a third; the little patient being allowed, as soon as the result was satisfactory, to walk about in stays. About 10 months was the period usually required to ensure a cure. Dr Calot naturally admits that the original operation demands extreme care and attention, as a false movement might produce a rupture of the spine, and might thus lead to immediate death. Some of the children with whom he dealt had been hunchbacks for upwards of eight yeare. Dr Calcot does not as yet venture to assert his belief that much can be done for grown-up persons similarly affected, but he does not despair of alleviating their distressed condition.