Who’s Who in Orthopedics Norwich, where he was a student of McKee and
Britain. Like all of his generation, Hodgson went into the army and served in India, Burma, and Singapore. At the time of his discharge at the end of World War II, Hodgson was a Lieutenant Colonel. After his discharge, Hodgson returned to England for additional training.
In 1951, Hodgson was appointed senior lec- turer and head of the Orthopedic and Trauma Unit in the Department of Surgery at the University of Hong Kong. It was here that he began his impor- tant work on the treatment of tuberculosis of the spine. The large number of patients and the lack of facilities for long-term conservative treatment made a more aggressive approach necessary and led Hodgson to seek a more radical surgical solu- tion to the problem. He accomplished this by exploiting the anterior approach to the spine with drainage of the abscess, removal of sequestrae, and correction of the deformity. The correction was maintained by strut grafts of cortical bone.
The advent of chemotherapy effective against tuberculosis affected the success of these opera- tions favorably.
The success of Hodgson’s program led the uni- versity to establish a Department of Orthopedic Surgery in 1961. Hodgson was made the head of this department and held the appointment until his retirement in 1975. His ward for crippled children in 1968 had increased to become the Duchess of Kent Children’s Hospital with 200 beds.
Interest in Hodgson’s work brought him stu- dents from all over the world and many honors, including the award by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of an Order of the British Empire. He lectured extensively in the United States.
After his retirement in 1975, Hodgson returned to Suffolk, England, where he died at the age of 78.
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