“Somerville” method, which he taught to sur- geons from all over the world, was a logical sequence of procedures in which a period of trac- tion on a Wing field frame was followed by con- trast arthrography of the hip and excision of the limbus if it was inverted. The leg was then immo- bilized in a plaster spica in full internal rotation for a month, when a derotation osteotomy was performed. His method contrasted with the long periods of splinting, and the uncertain outcome, of the “conservative” methods often used at that time.
The children whom he treated were never dis- charged from his care, most being examined per- sonally once a year in Oxford at clinics that soon became study sessions on skeletal development.
Miniaturized radiographs, meticulously mounted on a large cardboard sheet, told the story of each child’s hip. Like frames from a slow-motion cin- ematograph, the yearly films were used to teach the importance of the fourth dimension in pedi- atric surgery. To maintain these records, patients were relentlessly pursued; the international network of Somerville’s trainees made escape, even by emigration, almost impossible. The unique archive that resulted is maintained to this day, and mothers who were themselves treated by him in infancy now bring their own babies to the clinics.
Somerville also wrote on congenital coxa vara and was among the first to practice osteotomy for Perthes’ disease. He also introduced the concept of “persistent fetal alignment” of the hip in a short paper in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, which is a good example of the clarity of his thinking and of his writing. All his ideas were brought together in the book Development of the
Hip in Childhood, which he wrote in retirementin 1981.
Somerville had studied scoliotic deformity of the spine even before he went to Oxford, and this was the subject of one of his most penetrating insights. His theory that it resulted from lordosis, which led to rotation, was ignored for nearly 40 years, but was resurrected in the 1980s, when methods of treatment based upon it were suc- cessfully applied.
His reputation as a teacher was international, and during the last 20 years of his professional life he traveled the world as a lecturer and visit- ing professor, to more than 30 countries. His real enthusiasm, however, was for those places where he could actually do something, rather than just talk about it. He played a leading part in organiz-
ing the first orthopedic service in the Sudan and visited Khartoum regularly to supervise it. In 1964, with assistance from Barbara Castle’s Ministry of Overseas Development, he set up an orthopedic service and training program in Burma and visited Rangoon regularly, even after his retirement. At home, he was editorial secretary and then vice president of the British Orthopedic Association and was sometime president of the orthopedic section of the Royal Society of Medi- cine, the British Orthopedic Research Society and the ABC Orthopedic Club.
Edgar Somerville’s recreations were pursued just as energetically and with no less success. He had university Blues for hockey and tennis and played golf to a handicap of six. In the 1960s he took up sailing and cruised the coasts from Copenhagen to southern Brittany.
The years of his retirement were busy with travel and golf, but his joy in sailing receded after the death of his wife Margaret in 1981. He is sur- vived by his daughter and by his two grandsons, whose sporting efforts he applauded from the touch-line to within a few weeks of his death.
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Who’s Who in Orthopedics
James Spencer SPEED
1890–1970
Born July 30, 1890, in Rapid City, South Dakota,
Dr. Speed was the son of a banker. His family
moved to Omaha, Nebraska, when he was a small
child and soon thereafter returned to his parents’
original home in Roanoke, Virginia, where he spent his high-school days.
He was educated at the University of Virginia (AB 1912) and Johns Hopkins University (MD 1916). Following an internship at Jefferson Hos- pital in Roanoke, Virginia, and training at Union Protestant Infirmary (later Union Memorial Hos- pital) in Baltimore, Maryland, he served during World War I as a first lieutenant in the United States Army Medical Corps with Mobile Hospi- tal Number 1 in France from 1917 to 1919.
Returning to civilian life, he served a year of res- idency at the Hospital for Women in Baltimore, Maryland, and prepared to begin practicing in the South.
A trip to Memphis to find a partner was fruit- less for Dr. Speed and he returned to Virginia for a short vacation before opening a private practice in general surgery and gynecology in Memphis.
In Virginia, a telegram awaited him from Dr. Willis C. Campbell, Memphis orthopedic surgeon, who had been out of town when Dr.
Speed had gone to see him. A subsequent 3-day meeting between the two doctors began an asso- ciation in orthopedic surgery and a partnership that was unique in a day when young associates worked only a few years under an established physician before setting up their own practice.
For 42 years Dr. Speed practiced at the Camp- bell Clinic. On Dr. Campbell’s death in 1941, Dr.
Speed became chief of staff, not only of the Campbell Clinic (1941–1962) but also of the Crippled Children’s Hospital and School and the Hospital for Crippled Adults. He was profes- sor and head of the division of orthopedic surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medi- cine (1941–1958), president of the Campbell Foundation (1946–1964), and a member of the advisory board of the National Shriners Hospitals for Crippled Children (1957–1964). He was on the active staff of the Baptist Memorial Hospital and a consultant at St. Joseph Hospital, Methodist Hospital, US Marine Hospital Number 12 (now US Public Health Service Hospital), Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Kennedy Veterans Adminis- tration Hospital, and four railroads.
Dr. Speed was president of the Clinical Ortho- pedic Society in 1944 and of the American Ortho- pedic Association in 1950–1951. He served on the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery for 9 years. He was on the board of trustees of The
Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (1953–1963)and served as its chairman in 1959. He was chair- man of the orthopedic section of the American
Medical Association in 1934 and of the orthope- dic section of the Southern Medical Association in 1929. He was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and an honorary member of the British Orthopedic Association. He held membership in 20 medical societies, including the Southern Surgical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and the International Society for Ortho- pedic Surgery and Traumatology.
Dr. Speed’s retirement in 1962 closed a long, full chapter of service and achievement in ortho- pedics. Although he resigned all administrative duties, he remained the senior consultant of the Campbell Clinic and was honored in 1965 as Tennessee Physician of the Year. At the annual meeting of the Memphis and Shelby County Medical Society in January 1969, he was awarded a certificate for 50 years of practice and a 50-year pin by the Tennessee Medical Association.
The records show that he has left a lasting impression on our discipline: a prolific writer, he had to his credit over 40 published papers, some of which are classics: “An Operation for Unre- duced Dislocation of the Elbow” (1925), “Frac- ture of the Humeral Condyles in Children”
(1933), his chairman’s address to the orthopedic section of the American Medical Association,
“Central Fractures of the Neck of the Femur”
(1935), “Bone Syphilis” and “Operative Recon- struction of Malunited Fractures about the Ankle”
(1936), “Malunited Colles’ Fractures” (1945),
“Surgical Treatment of Condylar Fractures of the Humerus” (1950), “Cartilaginous Tumors of Bone” and his presidential address to the American Orthopedic Association, “Federal Sub- sidization of Medical Education” (1954). He also coauthored two editions of Campbell’s Operative
Orthopedics.His marriage in 1927 to Elizabeth Broaddus was an enviable merging of interests. Their enjoy- ment of gardening gave them great personal sat- isfaction and a means of sharing their bounties with friends. A love of the out-of-doors took them fishing and hunting, occasionally to distant places. From several trips abroad, they brought back remembrances, which added interest and personality to their home. Many orthopedists are among those who recall the hospitality of this couple who so truly personified the graciousness of the South.
Dr. Speed was the most mature person psycho- logically that I have ever known. Such maturity is an attribute coveted by many and attained by
315Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
few. His superior judgment, shown by his ability to appreciate situations in their proper perspec- tive, to allocate priorities, and to make sound decisions, was tempered with a rare, subtle sense of humor and dominated his professional and private life.
His surgical technique was superb: he handled tissue with a gentle kindness rarely seen in surgeons of his generation. After examining a patient, he frankly told him the advantages and disadvantages of the therapy to be used. Few patients were ever disappointed by Dr. Speed’s treatment.
As a consultant, teacher, or counsellor he was at his best. His judgment was sought by many and his teaching appreciated by all. A well-known, mature orthopedic surgeon once said he had driven over 600 miles for a 15-minute discussion with Dr. Speed concerning a personal decision and that the advice he had received was more than worth the trip.
Dr. Speed is fondly remembered as “The Chief” by the more than 150 residents who have trained at the Campbell Clinic. In appreciation, the Willis C. Campbell Club composed of these orthopedists established a student loan fund in 1960, which bears his name.
All that he did, he did well, whether it was orthopedic surgery, teaching, fishing, hunting, gardening, golfing or farming. With the attributes Dr. Speed possessed, greatness was inevitable. He would have succeeded in any one of many fields:
we in orthopedics are fortunate that he chose our specialty.
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