This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

THOMAS HORWITZ, M.D.

Arch Intern Med. 1940;65(6):1178-1191.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The current concept that the hypertrophic variety of spondylitis (spondylitis osteoarthritica) is not an arthritis but a spondylosis arising as a reaction to changes primary in the intervertebral disks is based on the views promulgated by Schmorl and his followers.¹ The intervertebral disks, through the effect of age and of continuous functional stress, pass through stages of fibrillation, dehydration, fissuring and "brown degeneration." Defects in the cartilage plates, which may be congenital, traumatic or infectious in origin, permit extrusion of disk material into the vertebral bodies and penetration of vessels from the spongiosa into the normally avascular intervertebral disks, which may become calcified or ossified. The thinning of the disks and the loss of their normal buffer effect are attended by sclerosis of the adjacent vertebral borders and by marginal proliferation which may proceed to bony ankylosis. This progressive series of events has been duplicated experimentally.²

The lower . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
PHILADELPHIA

From the Daniel Baugh Institute of Anatomy, Jefferson Medical College.

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