The Role of a Learned Society in the Promotion and Dissemination of Knowledge

Musculoskeletal ultrasound is a rather new technique of examining muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, peripheral nerves, and subcutaneous tissues. Although some historical papers and case reviews appeared in French and US literature in the mid to late 1970s (Cooperberg et al. 1978; Duval and Mambrini 1975; Moore et al. 1975; Seltzer et al. 1979), it was really during the early 1980s that musculoskeletal ultrasound was reported as a method able to show muscles, tendons, soft-tissue tumors, and joints (Crass et al. 1984; Middleton et al. 1984; Peetrons et al. 1984; Peetrons et al. 1986; Seltzer et al. 1980). The first book was on cross-sectional ultrasound anatomy of muscles edited by Bruno Fornage, in French in 1987 (Fornage 1987). The first book dedicated to pathology was written in German by Bernd-Dietrich Katthagen and dealt only with shoulder lesions (Katthagen 1988). The first book written in English about the full range of musculoskeletal ultrasound indications and results was edited by Marnix Van Holsbeeeck and Joe Introcaso and was published in 1991 (Van Holsbeeck and Introcaso 1991) and was followed the same year by the first book in French, by Fornage, about all musculoskeletal indications and the results of ultrasound (Fornage 1991).