The Classic Wiring of the Vertebrae as a Means of Immobilization in Fracture and Potts?? Disease

Berthold Ernest Hadra (1842–1903) was born in Silesia. He came to the United States in 1869 settling first in Houston. Texas and moving to Austin in 1872 where he remained engaged in a thriving practice. In 1891 he operated on a fracture dislocation of a cervical spine in a child showing progressive cord deterioration, using wires wrapped around the spinous processes to stabilize the vertebral sector. The concept of vertebral stabilization was highly original and the first recorded in surgical literature. He later applied the procedure to vertebrae involved in Polls' disease. He reported these cases in the Medical limes and Register and later that year presented his material to the American Orthopaedic Association. This presentation appeared in their Transactions (4:206, 1891) and thereby came to the attention of European orthopedic surgeons who. like Fritz Lange of Munich, modified but continued its use until the advent of Russell Hibbs' spine fusion operation in 1911. For readers with special interest. Jigger's excellent in-depth biography of Hadra may be found in