John Charnley, 29 August 1911 - 5 August 1982

Abstract

John Charnley was an orthopaedic surgeon of great skill and originality. He earned the admiration of surgeons through out the world and the gratitude of thousands of patients with painful, crippling arthritis of the hip, whose lives were dramatically changed when, as the result of the operation of low-friction arthroplasty that he devised, they lost their pain and regained their mobility. No one could be entirely unmoved by such tributes but they did not mean a great deal to Charnley. Although he would go to great lengths to help someone in real trouble he took a detached, even cynical, view of people en masse , whether patients or colleagues, and was driven not so much by compassion or ambition as by his single-minded determination to solve a problem. The problem he set out to solve, and which was to dominate his life, can be stated quite simply: how best to treat the common and disabling condition of osteoarthritis* of the hip joint? As with many problems in applied science, the search for a solution uncovered other problems of a more fundamental kind, which had to be solved on the way. Charnley attacked these with determination. Where necessary he enlisted the help of colleagues in other disciplines, but his own distinctive blend of biological and mechanical understanding is everywhere apparent.