vis is experienced; numbness and coldness of
the extremities are felt; locomotion becomes more difficult, and a
slight projection is observed upon the back. Even in this somewhat
advanced stage of the disease, when the symptoms are so apparent, many
cases are shamefully neglected because an ignorant adviser says it is
nothing serious and that the patient will outgrow it. The pain and
tenderness not always being in the back, the inexperienced are very
often misled as to the true character of the trouble. This distortion or
deformity of the back now becomes painfully prominent; the diseased
vertebrae quickly soften and waste away; the pressure upon the spinal
cord increases, and paralysis of the limbs supervenes; the power of
locomotion is lost, and, at last, the danger is realized and the
struggle for life begins.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

Thus, through ignorance, neglect, and improper treatment, the poor,
helpless victim is doomed to a life of hideous deformity and suffering.
We would, therefore, urge upon parents whose children are afflicted with
this terrible disease, the great importance of placing them under the
care of surgeons who have for many years made the treatment of such
cases a specialty, and who have every facility and all necessary
surgical appliances for insuring success in every case undertaken.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.
Appearance of a child suffering from
Pott's disease of the spine.]

[Illustration: Fig. 5.
Mode of stooping adopted by a child
suffering from spinal disease.]

TREATMENT. The great essentials for the successful treatment of disease
and deformities of the spine are first, a thorough knowledge of the
structure and parts involved by the disease; secondly, the adjustment of
mechanical appliances perfectly adapted to the requirements and
necessities of each individual case, and the proper use of our system of
"vitalization," applied to the spinal muscles to strengthen the weaker
and relieve the undue contraction of the stronger. For many years our
specialists have experimented, and have given the various appliances in
common use in these cases most thorough and practical tests, and have
found them very defective, being generally constructed upon wrong
principles. The physician who sends to a mechanic for an appliance, such
as are now made in the shops of most instrument makers, and uses the
same, is doing himself an injustice, and barbarously torturing his
pa