The treatment is to correct the curvature and build up the general health. These conditions are stubborn and progress is slow. In both the neurotic and hysterical spines the ligaments of certain areas will be found atonied and relaxed. This is especially noticed upon attempting to spring a group of vertebræ when all of a sudden the section relaxes. In either of these spines the lesions will irritate or obstruct nervous courses, produce venous stagnation or arterial starvation, and disturb lymph channels. H. F. Goetz has observed that in functional nervous diseases the dorsal spine is flat, while in visceral displacement the dorso-lumbar spine is posterior. The =Spine of the Aged= wherein is found stooped shoulders and a rigid spinal structure, can be distinctly improved by slow, cautious traction. This tones weakened muscles, releases contractures, separates the compressed intervertebral discs, and definitely tones the viscera. Careful work is imperative. FOOTNOTES: [40] Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. POTT’S DISEASE An article on Pott’s disease does not really come within the province of a practice of medicine. Still it will be acceptable to the practitioners and students of osteopathy, as one of the objects of osteopathic work is to improve, not only medical and obstetrical practice, but also surgical practice, and besides the osteopath will have many cases of spondylitis to treat. “Pott’s disease, or caries of vertebral bodies, was first described by Percival Pott in 1779. It consists of a destructive ostitis affecting the spongy tissue of one or more of the bodies of the vertebræ. The ostitis is tuberculous, and is similar in character to tubercular ostitis seen in the epiphysis of the long bones. Owing to the superincumbent weight of the head and shoulders pressing upon the carious vertebral bodies, the spine and trunk become peculiarly and characteristically distorted. The morbid process is limited, as a rule, to the bodies; the transverse, articular, and spinous processes are rarely primarily affected.” (Park).