Abstract
Accounts of spinal cord injury date back more than four
millennia to the Edwin Smith Papyrus (1,2). The record of
a case managed by Imhotep, physician to Pharoh Zoser III,
describes incontinence, paralysis, and loss of sensation.
Imhotep’s recommendation that cervical spine injuries were
‘‘an ailment not to be treated’’ persisted until the last
half-century. Until the advent of modern nursing care and
antibiotics, even young patients were quick to succumb to
pneumonia, sepsis, and thromboembolism after spinal cord
injuries. Indeed, as recently as 1924, the British Medical
Council stated, ‘‘the paraplegic may live a few years in a
state of more or less ill-health’’ (3).