History at Our Fingertips

EDITORIAL History at Our Fingertips As hand surgeons, we like to consider ourselves at the cutting edge of our clinical specialty. It is also important, however, that we are rooted in the past. The names of our professional ancestors are liberally sprinkled throughout our scientific writings and our conversations with colleagues. Although we are well versed in proper anatomic nomenclature and precise scientific terminology, we readily substitute the familiar names of those who described conditions we treat, procedures we perform, and structures we dissect: “Darrach” resection, “de Quervain’s” tendonitis, “Bunnell” suture, “Colles” fracture, “Kaplan’s” line, “Guyon’s” canal, “Madelung’s” deformity, and so forth. This rich eponymous history is most apparent in the instruments we use in the operating room (OR). They bear the names of those who came before us and serve as daily reminders of our surgical heritage. In this issue, Clifton and Roy Meals present historical profiles of these individuals. As the authors note, they represent an assortment of practitioners from various surgical walks of life who have no established connections with each other . . . except for their daily coming together in the OR instrument tray. Their diverse backgrounds mirror the development of hand surgery itself, which originated from several different surgical disciplines. We are indebted to the Meals for these fascinating narratives that keep us in touch with our historical past. Paul R. Manske, MD Copyright © 2007 by the American Society for Surgery of the Hand doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2007.06.001

The Journal of Hand Surgery

941