ELEVEN
Vitallium
“My plan was to return home from Sweden to Chicago in 1967,
and to spend the rest of my life conducting biomechanical spine
research and performing spine surgery. But when I spent two
weeks with Dr. Charnley in Wrightington, England, watching the
first ‘modern’ hip replacement surgeries, it hit me like a
thunderbolt. I would never have dreamed it was all possible. I
knew I had seen the future, and in a moment I changed the
course of my life, and returned to Chicago to spend the rest of
my life performing hip and knee replacements.”
—Jorge Galante, MD“Dr. Neer became disenchanted with the end results of patients
with fractures of the proximal humerus treated with resection of
the humeral head. He mentioned this to Dr. Darrach who said,
‘Smiley, why don’t you do something about it?’”
—Charles Rockwood, MDThe mosquito nets that hang down from the ceiling in the open-air hospital
ward are like spinnaker sails over an armada of hospital beds. In Rwanda,
like most African countries, the hospital wards have limited walls and
windows, which facilitate the free flow of air across the dozens of patients
whose cots are lined up in neat rows. Tuberculosis is thwarted with the
exchange of air, but open windows permit mosquito entry. Each cot has a
mosquito net anchored overhead to a rafter; the netting itself is opaque
and dense enough to block the tiny mosquitos that transmit the parasites