William John Little is an English surgeon who is credited with the first medical identification of spastic diplegia, which he observed in the 1860s among children. While spasticity was known as the disease, William John Little was the first to describe it. The disease he described for several decades was called Little's disease.
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Life
William Little was born in Redlayon in Whitechapel . His parents John and Hannah kept the inn. [one]
He suffered polio in childhood with paraparesis complicated by clubfoot. This prompted his treatment of such diseases, as well as orthopedics. In his youth he was a student of a pharmacist , at the age of 18 he entered the medical school at the London Hospital. He was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1832.
Little is also known for his doctoral dissertation in 1837 on tenotomy, the first monograph on this subject has not been published.
A little later he went to Germany to study the technique of subcutaneous achillotomy with its founder, Louis Stromayer , who subsequently corrected Little's slightly deformed foot using this method. Among his numerous publications were “deformities of the human body” (1853), in which he first described pseudo- hypertrophic myopathy.
The treatment technique developed by Stromayer and used by Little is still in use. He also studied cerebral palsy . [2]
Family
He had eleven children, including Edward who was also a surgeon and Archibald. Archibald became the husband of Alicia Little, who campaigned against footbinding in China.
Notes
- ↑ George Bentley, 'Little, William John (1810–1894)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 9 Nov 2016
- ↑ Historical Vignette # 9. Little big man: the life and genius of William John Little (1810-1894). Orthopedic Review 198; Nov. 17 (11): 1156, pp. 1161-6.