Jewish Invention Myths: Modern Orthopaedic Surgery
Sometimes jews can be forgiven for making a seemingly plausible ‘jewish invention’ claim without doing sufficient research because the answers aren’t necessarily readily available.
Such is arguably true in the case of the assertion that jewish invented modern orthopaedic surgery with ‘MNews’ claiming as follows:
‘Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov – A bone fusion technique
Gavriil Ilizarov created a pioneering apparatus in the field of orthopedic surgery, which brought worldwide fame to its inventor.’ (1)
The problem with this assertion is that it claims that Ilizarov created something wholly without precedent in orthopaedic surgery and therefore ‘revolutionized’ and/or ‘modernized’ it.
To explain: the concept is where a fractured or short limb has its bone fragments pinned in place using metal wires called Kirschner pins or Kirschner wires which are then attached to an external frame to hold the limb in place while bone growth and re-knitting of the bones occurs enabling healing to occur and a good chance that the limb will be as useable as it was before to the patient.
The jewish claim that Ilizarov ‘revolutionized’ and/or ‘modernized’ this just isn’t true since while was jewish – rather unusually a Mountain Jew from what is now Azerbaijan – (2) and he did invent the ‘Ilizarov Apparatus’ between 1951 and 1954 and famously successfully treated Soviet athlete 1968 Valery Brumel who had compound fractures to his right tibia and ankle due to a motorbike accident which caused his right leg to be substantially shortened. (3)
The ‘Ilizarov Apparatus’ didn’t come out nowhere since the concept was first reported by Hippocrates in ancient Greece using wooden rods to splint fractured bones, while Frenchmen Jean-Francois Malgaigne was the first person in the modern era to apply it as we’d understand it today with an external structure fixed to the bone fragments in 1840, while American Clayton Parkhill and Belgian Albine Lambotte independently created updated versions of this idea in 1894 and 1902 respectively with Lambotte notably adding in threaded pins for the first time. (4)
In actuality the first modern doctor to create a minimally invasive orthopaedic technique to treat compound fractures in this way using an external frame was the Swiss physician Raoul Hoffmann of Geneva who invented and used his ‘External Fixator Technique’ from 1938 not Gavriil Ilizarov between 1951 and 1954. (5)
Similarly, the ‘Ilizarov Apparatus’ was superseded by the ‘Taylor Spatial Frame’ in 1990 which was invented by Charles Taylor in Memphis which substantially improved on the problems of the ‘Ilizarov apparatus’ while keeping some of its useful elements. (6)
The truth is that – as Schwechter and Swan note - Raoul Hoffmann was the true father of this concept in modern surgery and medicine predating Gavriil Ilizarov by nearly two decades.
Scratch another ‘jewish invention’ myth!
References
(1) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions
(2) http://oldpersona.kurganobl.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=786%3A2012-01-13-05-04-00&catid=71%3A2012-03-20-03-07-06&Itemid=273
(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3025247/
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_fixation
(5) https://journals.lww.com/jbjsjournal/citation/2007/03000/raoul_hoffmann_and_his_external_fixator_.29.aspx
(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989144/
(7) https://journals.lww.com/jbjsjournal/citation/2007/03000/raoul_hoffmann_and_his_external_fixator_.29.aspx