Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1757

WILLIAM JOHN LITTLE (1810-1894) A treatise on the nature of club-foot and analogous distortions. W. Jeffs 1839 [20] xxiii [1] [xxi]-lxii, 276, 8 pp., illus. 22.4 cm.

Little, a native of London, studied at Guy's Hospital and University College before becoming a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and entering practice. Wishing to become a physician, he traveled to Berlin where he studied under Müller and received his degree in 1837. Little suffered from clubfoot and learned that Georg Friedrich Ludwig Stromeyer (1804-1876), the German orthopedic surgeon, had developed a new subcutaneous method for cutting the Achilles tendon. He journeyed to Hanover where Stromeyer's operation cured Little of his deformed foot. Little remained in Berlin to learn Stromeyer's operative techniques and returned to his own country in 1837 to introduce tenotomy for clubfoot. He maintained an active practice, assisted in founding the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, held teaching positions at the London Hospital, and was visiting and consulting physician to several other London hospitals. Cerebral spastic paralysis was first described by Little in 1862, when he stated that the condition could be caused by difficult labor, fetal anoxia, or trauma to the head and neck at birth. His important treatise On the nature and treatment of the deformities of the human frame (London, 1853) contained original descriptions of cerebral diplegia and pseudophypertrophic muscular dystrophy which later was called Erb's dystrophy or Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Prior to Little's publication of this work, there was no English language monograph on the treatment of clubfoot by tenotomy. Little's approach was basically the same as that of Stromeyer with certain improvements and elaborations. The work is illustrated with wood engravings depicting the various forms of the defect, surgical instruments, splints, and braces.

Cited references: Wellcome II, p. 530

Gift of John Martin, M.D.