Robert Jones: father of modern orthopaedic surgery

Robert Jones (1857-1933), the nephew of Hugh Owen Thomas, was an outstanding British orthopaedic surgeon at the close of the nineteenth, and during the first 30 years of the present century. He organized and revolutionized the management and treatment of war wounds in World War I when Director of Military Orthopaedics in the British Army. He established specialized military orthopaedic hospitals for the after-care and rehabilitation of the wounded soldier, being assisted in this work by many, mainly young, American surgeons. Jones was a constant champion of the crippled child. He was responsible for the setting up of orthopaedic departments in the British teaching hospitals and played a major role in the formation of the British Orthopaedic Association; hence the claim that he established orthopaedics as a specialty in its own right in Britain appears valid. He was a fast, brilliant surgeon who devised many new procedures. He was admired and respected by surgeons all over the world, especially Americans, and he received a host of prestigious awards from his own country and from the United States, At all times, he was generous to colleagues and to visitors, entirely free of jealousy and loved by patients, especially children.