Scoliosis: History of the Back Brace

The origin of the spinal back brace can be traced back to the 5th century BC, wherein Hippocrates devoted his time towards creating long-term treatments for spinal difficulties. He eventually devised a treatment for spinal abnormalities where he called the "Hippocratic" method. This method essentially consisted of painful pressure being applied to the spine for a long period of time, in the hope that it would reduce the damage of spinal deformities.

In 2nd century AD, Galen of Pergamum, a student at a school that taught the Hippocratic method, added more pressure to the spine and combined it with the science of traction. Unfortunately, this improvised method had little benefits and, as time advanced, became non-existant.

In 1540, the first actual back brace was developed by Ambrose Pare, a French army surgeon who is generally revered as the harbinger of modern surgery, discovered that spinal deformities were caused by the spine being out by place. He created a padded iron corset and multiple holes were made into the corset as the patient grew and aged. The iron corset is hailed as causing the creation of the modern-day spinal back brace.

In 1861, the first practice that reflected the same tactics as modern scoliosis surgery was created by Lewis Albert Sayre. Sayre was a staff physician at the Bellevue Hospital in New York and is considered to be one of the creators of orthopaedic surgery in the US. During this period in time, treatment for idiopathic scoliosis were still in the primitive stages, and whether research into the deformity should continue was deemed very controversial.

Sayre believed that the cure for idiopathic scoliosis was through gymnastics. As proof of his theory, he conducted an experiment wherein he observed a group of girls with idiopathic scoliosis perform a series of gymnastics and found that they "...ascertained infrequent spinal development". In 1874, Sayre published a report into traction combined with a plaster cast and that it could solve spinal deformity.

Perhaps the most important development into the study and treatment of scoliosis is when Wilhelm Conrad Rontengen's discovery of the radiation that he called "x-ray" radiation in the early 1900's. Using x-rays, physicians were able to study the skeleton without having to dissect the body. X-rays originally had to be exposed to the skeleton for a very long time. This resulted in poor skeletal photos and therefore it was hard to analyse scoliosis. Also, people back then did not know of the risks attached to over-exposure to radiation.

In 1930, x-ray picture quality had improved greatly and researchers used a measurement system known as "Rontengengrams" to scoliosis-related illnesses.

Source: www.ncht.nlm.nlh.gov.uk/