INFANTILE DEFORMITIES OF THE KNEE AND HIP

If I were asked to give a summary of my research work of the past ten years, I would say:

Just as in modern medicine we know that there is a predisposition to certain diseases, such as tuberculosis, so there is likewise in certain human beings an inherited disposition to certain infantile deformities, based upon an arrest of development in certain parts of the skeleton,—particularly of the ankle, knee, and hip joints and their epiphyses. If this arrest of development continues during childhood, the erect position and the gait produce, increase, and stabilize deformities.

As to the cause of this arrest of development, two points are of significance: We know clinically that the infantile deformities have a tendency to familial and hereditary appearance and that anatomically their morphological substratum is identical with the normal conditions of certain animals, such as the anthropoid. Thus I consider the infantile deformities as congenital in a wider sense.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Technorati    What's this?