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KEYWORDS Acrylic cement, Hip arthroplasty, John Charnley, Polyethylene cup,Teflon
When he sat the FRCS examination in 1951 Harold Ellis was advised that, if asked by the examiner, ' What is the best treatment for osteoarthritis of the hip?', to reply, 'Provide the patient with a walking stick and prescribe aspirin'. The results of surgery for this condition at that time were pretty discouraging. Here, Professor Ellis outlines the development of this surgical technique.
Themistokles Gluck, in Berlin in 1891, replaced the diseased femoral head with an ivory ball and socket, cemented and screwed into place, but the apparatus was soon extruded. Philip Wiles, at the Middlesex Hospital in 1938, using a stainless steel ball and socket, and Marius Smith Petersen of Boston the following year, interposing a vitallium cup between the bone ends of the hip, had only temporary success. The brothers Jean and Robert Judet in Paris in the 1940s replaced...