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Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22597, 30 December 1938, Page 3

An operation on the spine to cure sciatica was described in London recently by an American professor. Professor Joseph S. Barr, of Boston, Mass., reported to the doctors results of more than 80 cases of sciatica operated on at Massachusetts General Hospital. Sciatica, he showed, is often due to displacement of the discs between the vertebrae (or “nobs”) of the spine. These discs are cushions which act as the springs of a car to prevent jarring of the central nervous system through sudden shock, such as a fall or a bump. Sometimes, however, a severe jar breaks one or one may slowly force its way through its fibrpus cover. The broken or bulging piece presses on the nerves in the spine and produces on the legs the agonies of sciatica. The operation is done by a surgical team working on the spine, while another team is removing shavings from the shin bone, which can be shaped and fitted in as an artificial bridge of the gap in the spine left by the operation. That mechanical repairing does not add more than a few minutes to the operation.