Falconer Murray (1 results)

Brit. J. Surg., 35/139. - Bristol: John Wright & Sons Ltd; London: Simpkin Marshall Ltd., 1948, 8°, pp.225-249, Fig.241-260, 10 Tables, orig. wrappers. Offprint! * Part of this paper was delivered by one of us (M. A. F.) as a Hunterian Lecture before the Royal College of Surgeons on Oct. 17, 1947. "Even a cursory perusal of current medical literature will reveal a considerable diversity of opinion among surgeons who operate upon cases of prolapsed intervertebral disk, as to the frequency with which these lesions produce symptoms and the principles governing their operative treatment. All who work in this field have had their successes and their failures. They have observed patients on whom immense benefit was conferred, as well as others on whom the degree of improvement failed to reach expectations. Furthermore, in some of the cases benefited, the findings at operation may have seemed inadequate to account for symptoms, whereas in still others a definite lesion was dealt with apparently adequately, but symptoms persisted or later recurred. This paper is concerned primarily with a consideration of the various factors which, in our experience, make for success or failure in intervertebral disk surgery, particularly as applied to the lumbar region. It is based mainly upon an analysis of the clinical, operative, and follow-up findings in 100 consecutive cases submitted to operation with a diagnosis of prolapsed lumbar intervertebral disk, but a number of other cases have been included to illustrate and amplify certain points. Since operation all patients in our main series have been followed up for periods of from one to four years. In brief, this present investigation shows, first, that lumbar intervertebral disk lesions provide the underlying pathological basis of most cases of severe and persistent sciatica and of many cases of severe low-back pain, and, secondly, that the results of surgical treatment may be satisfactory, provided attention is paid to certain principles to be discussed." Falconer, et al. Murray Falconer (1910-1977) was the first Director of the Neurosurgical Unit of Guy's, Maudsley, and King's College Hospitals in London, and he will be particularly remembered for his work on the surgery of temporal lobe epilepsy.