Oral Presentation New Zealand Association of Plastic Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting

The founder of tendon repairs; Galen or Avicenna?   (854)

Thomas JD Meares 1 , Alistair McCombe 1
  1. Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery, Gold Coast University Hospital, Southport, QLD, Australia

Arguably, no area of Surgery has evolved as much as flexor tendon repairs dating all the way back to 2AD. Though Galen (131-201 AD) was the first to write extensively on nerves, tendons and their actions, he wrote prolifically of the error of said repair. It wasn’t until Avicenna, the renowned Arabian Surgeon wrote the “”Al-Qanun-fi-Al-tibb” or the Canon of Medicine cicra 1020 that detailed nerves, tendons and ligaments as separate anatomical structures and advised their repair extensively. This brief report hopes to shed light on the history of tendon repairs and give service to both Galen and Avicenna’s ground breaking work. 

  1. Afshar, A. (2011). A Brief Report About the Concepts of Hand Disorders in the Canon of Medicine of Avicenna. The Journal of Hand Surgery, 36(9), 1509–1514. doi:10.1016/j.jhsa.2011.06.018 
  2. Kleinert, H. E., Špokevičius, S., & Papas, N. H. (1995). History of flexor tendon repair. The Journal of Hand Surgery, 20(3), S46–S52. doi:10.1016/s0363-5023(95)80169-3
  3. Manske, P. R. (2005). History of Flexor Tendon Repair. Hand Clinics, 21(2), 123–127. doi:10.1016/j.hcl.2004.03.004