50 Years Ago in CORR: The Management of Idiopathic Scoliosis John H. Moe MD CORR 1957;9:169–184

Excerpt

The treatment of spinal deformities was described in antiquity. According to Bick [3], “Deformities of the spinal column were intensively studied, and although several cardinal errors were made, based on certain discrepancies in the anatomic knowledge of that time, it was in this field that Hippocratic orthopedics attained its highest genius.” Numerous devices, from traction beds (Venel, 1788 [3]) to braces (Levacher, 1764 [3]) were described between those times and modern. A wide variety of braces were available by the 1930s [4], many of which included features of more contemporary braces. Studying specimens from the Guy’s Hospital Museum, Lane [12] recognized the occurrence of spontaneous fusion in deformed spines. A few decades later, Hibbs described a technique of surgical fusion in tuberculosis in 1911 [9] and began using the technique for scoliosis in 1914 [10] using local bone for graft. In his followup study published in 1924 Hibbs noted all surviving patients maintained the correction of the deformity. Albee independently described surgical fusion of the spine in 1911, using strut grafts from the tibia [1, 2]. Campbell suggested both these techniques were problematic: that of Albee because the straight tibial strut graft did not fit the curved spines and that of Hibbs because the laminae and articular facets on the concave side of major deformities were difficult to expose [4]. Rather, Campbell used multiple thin flexible grafts from the tibia. Harrington, in 1962, reported the next major advance: the use of metal implants to temporarily maintain correction while the fusion was healing [8]. In the subsequent decades many authors described various types of fusion supplemented by instrumentation [5, 7, 16‐18]. …