Loose Cartilage From Intervertebral Disk Simulating Tumor of the Spinal Cord

Walter E. Dandy (Fig. 1) was born in 1886 in Sedalia, Missouri, the only child of recent emigrants from England. He demonstrated unusual scholastic aptitude as a child. After graduating From the University of Missouri, where he was a baseball player of professional caliber, he went on to the Johns Hopkins Medical School with advanced standing. He was attracted to the field of neurosurgery by Harvey Cushing, and Cushing's departure for Harvard left Dandy depressed for months. Of his many contributions to neurosurgery, the greatest was the development of ventnculography, which revolutionized the localization of brain tumors. Dandy was a superb surgical technician as well as an outstanding clinical investigator and teacher. His sudden death in 1946 from a coronary artery occlusion at the age of 60 elicited a sense of loss in all of his colleagues. Dandy's report oftwo cases of herniated discs with extrusion of material into the spinal canal is a milestone in the history of surgery.