title: Hans Brun: a Swiss pioneer in the surgery of the spinal cord, brain and herniated lumbar disc.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Toward the end of the nineteenth century, it was Gowers, Horsley and Macewen who first reported successful surgical procedures for the treatment of subdural extramedullary tumors. Following this, Church and Eisendrath as well as Putnam and Warren reported unsuccessful attempts to treat subpial spinal pathologies in their patients. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century did reports of successful interventions of this type accumulate. In the analysis of these case reports, the authors noticed a certain lack of accuracy about the anatomical allocations and descriptions of intra- and extramedullary spinal lesions. From this, the question of who actually carried out the pioneering works in the early twentieth century in the field of surgery of intramedullary pathologies arose.
  
  
  METHODS
  Analysis of the relevant original publications of Hans Brun and research on the poorly documented information about his life history by personally contacting contemporary relatives.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The literature analysis showed that the Swiss neurologist Otto Veraguth and surgeon Hans Brun made fundamental contributions to subpial spinal cord surgery at the very beginning of the last century that remain valid today. According to our research, Hans Brun should be remembered as the third surgeon (after von Eiselsberg and Elsberg) who successfully removed an intramedullary lesion in a patient.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Brun should be remembered as an early and successful surgeon in this specialized field. His operative work is described in detail in this article. At the same time, his achievements in the fields of brain and disc herniation surgery are presented.
authors: Department of Neurosurgery, Kantonsspital Sankt Gallen, Rorschacher Str. 95, 9007, St.Gallen, Switzerland, gerhard.hildebrandt@kssg.ch.
authors: Gerhard
authors: G
authors: Hildebrandt
authors: Martin N
authors: MN
authors: Stienen
authors: Werner
authors: W
authors: Surbeck
authors: Ulrich
authors: U
authors: Tröhler
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000601:surgery; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007405:Intervertebral Disc Displacement / Q000601:surgery; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000601:surgery; D009493:Neurosurgery / Q000266:history*; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000601:surgery; D013557:Switzerland