New Zealand Orthopaedic Association

The New Zealand Orthopaedic Association is established in the year 1741. Many developments in orthopedic surgery have resulted from experiences during period of war. On the battlefields of the Middle Ages the injured were treated with bandages saturated in horses’ blood which dried to form a stiff, but contaminated, splint. Originally, the period orthopedics meant the modifying of musculoskeletal defects in children. Nicolas Andry, a French professor at the Academy of Paris created the term in the first textbook inscribed on the subject in 1741. He advocated the use of exercise, manipulation and supporting to treat deformities in children. His book was rapt towards parents, and while some subjects would be aware to orthopedists today, it also contained within 'excessive sweating of the palms' and freckles. Jean-André Venel established the first orthopedic association in 1780, which was the first hospital dedicated to the action of children's skeletal irregularities. He established the club-foot shoe for children born with foot deformities and various methods to treat curving of the spine. Advances made in surgical technique during the 18th century, such as John Hunter's research on ligament healing and Percival Pott's work on spinal deformity steadily increased the range of new methods available for actual treatment. Antonius Mathijsen, a Dutch military surgeon, invented the plaster of Paris company in 1851. However, up until the 1890s, orthopedics was still a study restricted to the correction of deformity in children. One of the first surgical techniques developed was percutaneous tenotomy. This involved cutting a tendon, eventually the Achilles tendon, to help treat deformities together with bracing and exercises. In the late 1800s and first decades of the 1900s, there was important controversy about whether orthopedics should include surgical procedures at all. Examples of people who aided the enlargement of modern orthopedic surgery were Hugh Owen Thomas, a surgeon after Wales, and his nephew, Robert Jones. Thomas grow into attracted in orthopedics and bone-setting at a young age and, after establishing his own practice, departed on to expand the field into general treatment of fracture and other musculoskeletal problems. He advocated required rest as the best therapy for fractures and tuberculosis and created the so-called 'Thomas Splint', to soothe a fractured femur and inhibit infection. He is also responsible for numerous other medical improvements that all carry his name: 'Thomas's collar' to treat tuberculosis of the cervical spine, 'Thomas's manoeuvre', an orthopedic exploration for fracture of the hip joint, Thomas test, a method of detecting hip deformity by having the patient lying uniform in bed, 'Thomas's wrench' for tumbling fractures, as well as anosteoclast to break and reset bones.