CONTOR, CONDOR, or CONDUR, the American name
Contorsion name of a species of VULTURE. See ORNITHOLOGY Index.
Contorsion, in general, signifies the action of twisting or wrestling a member of the body out of its natural situation. Rope-dancers accustomed themselves to contorsions of their limbs from their youth, to render the fibres of their articulations lax, and supple to all kinds of postures.
Contorsion, in Medicine, has many significations. 1. It denotes the iliac passion. 2. An incomplete dislocation, when a bone is in part, but not entirely, forced from its articulation. 3. A dislocation of the vertebrae of the back sideways, or a crookedness of these vertebrae. And, 4. A disorder of the head, in which it is drawn towards one side, either by a spasmodic contraction of the muscles on the same side, or a palsy of the antagonist muscles on the other.