Periodic review of the methods used in the treatment of familiar diseases is necessary and beneficial. This book, the fifth volume of such a review, deals with diseases or injuries of the spine, knee, and hip. Also, there are single chapters on muscular dystrophy and congenital absence of the thumb.
The book begins with a detailed discussion of pollicization in congenital absence of the thumb written by the editor of this volume. The chapter reviews the history of pollicization followed by an explicit description of his operative technique and an indepth review of his results in 11 cases. This is the reference to use in the treatment of this infrequently encountered anomaly.
There are four chapters concerning the axial skeleton, including a discussion of the difficulties of diagnosing injuries of the cervical spine in early childhood, a statistical study of scoliosis in cerebral palsy patients, followed by a comprehensive review