Abstract
From today’s perspective, it is hard to imagine how fractures were treated well into the 1950s and even into the 1960s. Upon arrival at the Davos Hospital, a patient with a lower leg fracture from a skiing accident was typically treated by first stabilizing the broken limb, then by placing the limb into a plaster cast, and finally by having the patient rest for many weeks in traction, in a hospital bed, until the bone healed. The traction was a complicated looking system, often with a nail put through the patient’s heel and weights attached with ropes to the extended limb. The plaster cast would have to be kept on for 8–12 weeks, during which time the patient was subject to reduced mobility. After the plaster cast was removed, patients would then have to learn how to walk again.
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Notes
- 1.
For a detailed approach of Lorenz Böhler, see Schlich (2002), p. 17–19.
- 2.
Schema-F is an expression used in the German language to refer to a standardized and routinized process that could be applied without much thought or concentration, such as filling in routine forms and reports.
- 3.
Böhler (1929).
- 4.
It should be pointed out that X-ray technology was not as fully developed, limiting the surgeons’ view of the bone fragments around the trauma area.
- 5.
- 6.
Film Interview for Swiss Television SDR, 1980.
- 7.
Kuner (2015), p. 4.
- 8.
A very detailed rendition of the development of surgical procedures can be found in Schlich (2002), pp. 19–27.
- 9.
Smith-Peterson et al. (1931), pp. 715–759.
- 10.
Schlich (2002), p. 23.
- 11.
Heim (2001), pp. 18–21.
- 12.
Lambotte (1907).
- 13.
Lambotte (1913).
- 14.
Lane (1950).
- 15.
Heim (2001), p. 132.
- 16.
Lambotte (1907), p. 11.
- 17.
Müller et al. (1963), pp. 3–5.
- 18.
Danis (1932).
- 19.
Danis (1949).
- 20.
German, ‘Fracture Disease.’
- 21.
Schlich (2002), pp. 25–26.
- 22.
Gary (1928), pp. 27–39.
- 23.
Reference from Schlich (2002), p. 25.
- 24.
Schlich attributed this comment to Lorenz Böhler (1929).
- 25.
- 26.
Thomas Schlich cites Venable and Stuck (1947) and Reynolds and Key (1954) for these studies.
- 27.
Kuner (2015), p. 154.
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Jeannet, JP. (2019). Treatment of Bone Fractures Prior to 1960. In: Leading a Surgical Revolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01980-8_4
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