This is a historical document. Gerald Burke, a patient and meticulous researcher, was the first to attempt a detailed analysis of the persistent crippling problem of backache, and his work embraced the historical record from the time of Hippocrates to the recorded works of his colleagues in the Korean War era. Dr. Burke was also an orthopaedic surgeon, and he includes the results of thousands of surgeries and labratory studies.
Dr.Burke's professional career spanned two major wars and several changes in technology that had a significant effect on the nature of his medical practice. Wartime, of course, has an impact on practioners, and reconstructive surgery of the wartime wounded created a significant demand for innovation in orthopaedic reconstructive surgery. Following WWII, the rapid expansion of automobile use without seatbelts created a steady demand for assistance to car crash victims. Dr. Burke noted that political detente, the use of seatbelts in cars, and the invention of safety harnesses for skiers had a most noticeable impact on his daily surgery workload.
Dr. Burke was also a dedicated medical researcher and university lecturer, carefully documenting the progress of his own work and the work of his colleagues as they pursued answers to this widespread medical puzzle. Almost everyone knows the the problem of debillitating backache. After Dr.Burke published the results of his first analysis of the backache issue, his colleagues urged him to expand upon the documentation of his pioneering efforts, and this book was the result. Although the tools and techniques are now seen as of another era, and the prose is slightly politically incorrect in modern times, the principles discovered are timeless, and the book remains a valuable practical resource for the modern physician.
Forty years after publication of the book, this internet edition helps to support the availablity of Dr.Burke's innovative look at the problem of backache. The print edition was naturally set in the standard fixed metal type of the era, and the illustrations by Fred Richards and Reilly Burke were done with pen-and-ink tools of the traditional medical illustrator. The internet edition maintains as much of the look-and-feel of the original edition as possible, but minor changes have been made to accomodate the new technology. Some minor typographical errors were corrected, and internet links have been added to aid the modern researcher.
Dr.Burke's pioneering analysis of the problem of backache saw several printings and sold world-wide in the early 1960s. After he passed away in 1968, publication ceased as the last printing sold down. Good copies of this book can still be found on Amazon.com in the various used and collector pages. His work has been referenced countless times by later researchers and practitioners. The most recent work to mention Dr.Burke's pioneering work is Suspensionthérapie et pouliethérapie - Guide pratique by Bernard Grumler, dated 2011, available through Sauramps Médical
Comments, of course, may be directed to the publisher, and are welcomed.
Reilly Burke
Richmond, Canada, 2011
Macdonald Publishing
ISBN 978-0-920406-47-2