This work is based on a study of necrosis in 150 femoral heads in adults who had no evidence of such causal factors as a fracture, dislocation, caisson disease, sickle-cell anaemia or Gaucher’s disease (Fig. 1). This condition has been recognised during the last ten years: but only eleven cases were seen before 1958, and no less than 139 during the next five years. Idiopathic necrosis was descr...
