Citation

Goodrich JT. Neurosurg. Focus 2004; 16(1): E2.

Affiliation

Leo Davidoff Department of Neurological Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Children's Hospital of Montefiore, Bronx, New York 10467, USA. goodrich@aecom.yu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, American Association of Neurological Surgeons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15264780

Abstract

There is a paucity of surviving texts from ancient and medieval times that can shed light on the early development of spine surgery. Nevertheless, the author reviews many of the available books and fragments and discusses early developments in the field of spine surgery from the point of view of physicians' personalities, general themes, and actual surgical practices. For purposes of an overview and to highlight changing trends in spine surgery, he divides the paper into four eras of medicine: 1) Egyptian and Babylonian; 2) Greek and early Byzantine; 3) Arabic; and 4) medieval.

Language: en