80th anniversary of the founding of the JOA

deformities, arthroscopy, wry neck, surgery of the spinal cord, amputation and prostheses, and sports injuries — were presented in addition to the aforementioned topics. As such, the independence of the JOA from the Japan Surgical Society reflected great credit on Japanese orthopedic surgeons at that time. After 1940, war wounds were frequently the main theme of JOA annual congresses; and owing to the ravages of the war within Japan, the annual congress, in fact, had to be suspended in 1944 and 1945. The third 20-year period was from 1946 to 1965, which was the first 20 years after the war, when Japanese orthopedic surgeons started working again amid the ruins of the war to reorganize their research and clinical activities; and 31 more universities opened orthopedic departments. At JOA congresses, in addition to the main topics noted above, bone grafting, arthroplasty, rheumatoid arthritis, low back pain, osteoarthritis, hand surgery, bone tumors, cervical spondylosis, Perthes disease, gait analysis, osteoporosis, and cerebral palsy were intensively discussed. One of the characteristics of Japanese orthopedic surgery during this period was that orthopedics largely expanded the medical fields it encompassed. In 1955, for the first time after the war, Prof. Junghans from Germany was invited to give a special lecture on the spine at the JOA annual congress, and thereafter leading world authorities on orthopedics were invited almost every year to give lectures. Thus, during the first 20 years after the war, Japanese orthopedic surgeons made strenuous efforts to gain information about many fields from developed western countries in order to reorganize their research systems and clinical activities throughout Japan. As a result, many local orthopedic societies were founded all over the country, and related societies such as the Japanese Society for Traumatology and Occupational Medicine (1953), the Japanese Society for Surgery of the Hand (1957), the Japan Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (1957), the Japanese The first departments of orthopedic surgery to be established in Japan were opened at Tokyo University and Kyoto University in 1906, a century ago. Twenty years later, in 1926, the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) was officially founded. To commemorate both the centennial and the 80th anniversary, the JOA organized memorial symposia and panel discussions at its annual congress held in Yokohama in May this year under the presidency of Professor Kozo Nakamura of Tokyo University. I had the honor of delivering one of the memorial lectures, speaking on how orthopedic studies in Japan have changed and developed in response to trends in social conditions throughout the last 100 years. A vast number of records have accumulated as a result of these annual congresses during the last century. Analyzing these records, I was interested to discover that major historical changes in the field of orthopedics in Japan have taken place about every 20 years. For instance, during the first 20 years from 1906 to 1925, before the JOA had been founded, five more universities, in addition to the original two, opened orthopedic departments. Therefore, orthopedic surgeons from the seven departments had to present papers on orthopedic topics such as fracture, developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), club foot, spinal deformities, osteomyelitis, bone and joint tuberculosis, rickets, and poliomyelitis at the annual congress of the Japan Surgical Society, which had been founded in 1899. The second 20-year period was from 1926, when the JOA was founded, to 1945 when World War II came to an end. During this period, nine more universities in Japan had opened orthopedic departments; and at JOA annual congresses, scientific papers specific to orthopedics — covering areas such as epiphyseopathy, bone