remarkable man whose theories and surgical methods have enlightened physicians and saved countless limbs. He died on July 24, 1992 at the age of 71 in Kurgan, Russia. He leaves behind his wife, Valentina, his children Svetlana, Maria and Alexander, and his three grandchildren.
will remember the many ingenious models that he constructed and delighted in displaying to illus- trate fine points of functional anatomy. He was equally proficient in designing and constructing innovative parts for the elaborate model train ensemble housed in his home.
Dr. Inman always felt that he was not a joiner.
He preferred to spend most of any leisure time with his family, Irene (the former Miss Cootay of Hilo, Hawaii) and they were very close through- out their life together. Nevertheless, Verne was a member of many professional societies, which he chose to support in the scientific arena rather than in the committee structure. The major exception was The American Orthopedic Association, which he served as Vice-President in 1964.
Dr. Inman was an outstanding teacher. His boundless enthusiasm quickly captured his audi- ences, which had no difficulty in following his crystal-clear presentations. He was a superb cli- nician, but the needs of his patients seemed almost to be forgotten in his zeal to understand and relate to the patients the intricacies of their disabilities. As he often said, “Once I have arrived at the solution of a patient’s problem, I am content to relegate the implementation to others.” He dis- liked committee function and perfunctory admin- istrative duties with a passion. Above all, he was possessed by a consuming curiosity that led him continually to ask questions and seek solutions, all the while maintaining a resolute scepticism when confronted by superficial or pat answers.
Verne T. Inman, MD, PhD, the scientist, prob- ably did more than any individual before him to define and refine the role of “man the machine.”
It was he who defined normal locomotion in terms of its component parts for ease of understanding and application to disturbed function. The exact- ness of his measurements established demanding standards for contemporary investigators as well as for those who will follow. His remarkable ability to simplify concepts and formulate princi- ples enabled him to see clearly what others often saw dimly.
That his greatest contribution to orthopedics would be in research was by design. On gradua- tion from college in 1928, he initiated his master’s program as a medical student, and filed his thesis on cutaneous nerve distribution in 1929. After graduation from medical school in 1932, he accepted an appointment in the anatomy depart- ment and immediately embarked on his doctorate program. His thesis dealing with the growth of the human fetal cranium and appendicular skeleton in
157Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Verne Thomson INMAN
1905–1980
Born in San Jose, California, in 1905, Dr. Inman lived out his life in the state that was kind to him and provided him an education at its university campuses in Berkeley and San Francisco. He repaid the state many fold by serving on the faculty of the medical school in San Francisco for 48 years, including a term as Chairman of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery from 1957 to 1970.
Although Dr. Inman was most widely known
and respected for his erudite investigative studies,
those who knew him closely remember him as a
light-hearted, congenial, informal individual who
was as much at home in the campus maintenance
shops as in the Chancellor’s office. His cheerful
greeting for secretaries, nurses, students, profes-
sors, cooks, and administrators was always on a
first-name basis. When summoned to the tele-
phone by a consultative call from Washington,
D.C., he was apt to be found in the brace shop
assisting the prosthetist or in the anatomy labora-
tory, accompanied by a student or two, dissecting
a bear’s foot. All of the visitors to his laboratory
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
relation to sitting height was published in 1934.
A study of the intervertebral disc, in conjunction with Dr. Howard Naffziger, was completed during his residency and published in 1938. From that time forward a continuous stream of substantive reports was added to the medical literature.
Shortly after his classic report, “Observations on the Function of the Shoulder Joint,” appeared in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery in 1944, Dr. Inman was approached by the Committee on Prosthetic Devices of the National Research Council and urged to accept a federal grant for the purpose of improving artificial limbs. He joined forces with Dr. Howard Eberhart, Professor of Engineering, and they accepted the challenge.
Thus began the lower-extremity prosthetic devices research project in the School of Engi- neering, Berkeley, and the subsequent devel- opment of the Biomechanics Laboratory in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, San Francisco.
The ensuing research activities solidified Dr.
Inman’s interest in biomechanics and consumed most of his creative energies for a period of nearly 30 years, during which nearly 40 major reports were published.
He lived the final decade of his life at a more leisurely pace. He and Irene found more time to spend at the family farm in the Santa Clara Valley, where Dr. Inman cultivated unusual plants and fruit trees. At the university he wound down his research activities and completed a monograph,
The Joints of the Ankle, which was published in1976. Death came quietly to Dr. Verne Thomson Inman on February 5, 1980, in San Francisco at the age of 74 after a brief illness. He was survived by his wife Irene, three sons, six grandchildren, and a multitude of friends, former students, and colleagues, all of whose lives have been wonder- fully enriched by his presence among them. Just 3 weeks before his death he met with his edito- rial staff to put the finishing touches on the exhaustive treatise, Human Walking.
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