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Eur Spine J (2007) 16:303305 DOI 10.1007/s00586-007-0330-1
EDITORIAL
Alf Nachemson, MD, PhD, 19312006: an exceptional pioneer in spine care
Bjrn Rydevik Tommy Hansson Marek Szpalski Max Aebi Robert Gunzburg
Accepted: 28 January 2007 / Published online: 14 February 2007 Springer-Verlag 2007
It is with great sadness we learned of the death of Alf Nachemson on December 4, 2006 at the age of 75. Alf Nachemson was born June 1, 1931. He is survived by his wife Ann and his children, Louise, Mikael, Lotta and Sophie and their families.
Alf Nachemson graduated in medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1956 and earned his PhD at the University of Uppsala in 1960. He moved to Gothenburg and the Sahlgrenska Hospital in 1961, where he became an orthopaedic specialist and associate professor. He was appointed as Professor and Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery at Gteborg University and Sahlgrenska Hospital in 1971 and served in this capacity until his retirement in 1996. Under his Chairmanship his Department became a major research facility with innovative orthopaedic research laboratories and a large research budget. He very soon understood the importance of subspecialties in orthopaedics and divided his department along this idea. He was also a member of the Board of the Medical Faculty at Gteborg University. He ofcially retired at the age of 65, but continued to be active literally until his last day.
In the mid-1950s Alf Nachemson was given an assistant research position under Professor Carl Hirsch at Uppsala University Hospital. To study the loading conditions of the human spine he developed a method for intradiscal pressure measurements. The initial work was performed on post-mortem material and was the basis for his thesis entitled Lumbar intradiscal pressure: experimental studies on post-mortem material, published in Uppsala in 1960. He subsequently performed the rst in vivo disc pressure measurements in San Francisco and Gteborg. The in vitro studies had already shown that it was possible to measure the intradiscal pressure not only in non-degenerated discs but also in moderately degenerated discs. The in vivo measurements proved that the intradiscal pressure reected the...