HIPPOCRATESThird century BC

Who’s Who in Orthopedics

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HIPPOCRATES

Third century BC

Hippocrates was born on the Greek island of Cos, the son of a physician. Among his contemporaries were Plato, Socrates, Xenophon, and Protagas.

It was a time of great intellectual ferment.

Hippocrates practiced in Cos and was surrounded by a group of students throughout most of his life.

He left an impressive legacy in the form of numerous manuscripts, which have survived and fascinated medical historians for generations. Not all of this material actually can be attributed to Hippocrates. However, most scholars think that the surgical books are the most likely to come from Hippocrates.

Hippocrates was familiar with the problem of dislocation of the shoulder. The Greeks were great athletes and there were the usual risks of an agrarian society. He dealt with acute dislocation, he faced the problems of delayed reduction, and there were cases of pathologic dislocations attrib- utable to suppurative conditions such as tubercu- losis. All of these problems can be seen today and are recognized by the same signs and symptoms described by Hippocrates. Although many of the diseases described by Hippocrates have disap- peared or metamorphosed into new forms, trauma remains immutable, the same today as it was at the time of Hippocrates.

Carl HIRSCH

1913–1973

Carl Hirsch exerted a major influence on the course of orthopedic teaching and practice in the United States. The results of this influence will be felt by subsequent generations of orthopedic sur- geons in much the same way that the influence of Erdheim, transmitted through Willis Campbell and Dallas Phemister, was felt by their students and subsequently by present-day practitioners and residents. Erdheim’s field was pathology. Carl Hirsch’s was biomechanics. The current empha- sis on biomechanics as an important basic science in orthopedics can be traced to his influence and teaching.

His interest in the application of engineering to orthopedic research and practice was stimulated by his work on chondromalacia of the patella, in which he performed mechanical tests on the prop- erties of patellar cartilage. This work was pub- lished in 1943. His attention was then directed to problems of the back, and while he was Associ- ate Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, he performed further investigative work. He held three Chairs in Sweden: Uppsala, 1955–1960;

Göteborg, 1960–1969; and Stockholm, 1969 until his death. His biomechanics laboratory was expanded with each move.

In 1957, the first American research fellow

began work in Professor Hirsch’s biomechanics

laboratory. Thereafter, each year one or two

research fellows from the United States and other

parts of the world spent a year or two in the bio-