Spinal Injuries Article type: Editorial

mits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Spinal injuries have been known since antiquity and un-til the 20th century, carried an inevitable fatal prognosis. Patients died either immediately from their intercurrent injuries and acute fulminating urinary tract infections, or they died in the following weeks from chronic pyelo-nephritis and pressure sores. Any treatment was pallia-tive, easing the patient’s pathway to the grave. Today, as a result of pioneering work started prior to the Second World War by Donald Munro in the United States and during the Second World War by Ludwig Gutt-mann in the United Kingdom, the situation has changed remarkably, provided the patient with an acute spinal injury is admitted to a specialised centre where all the facilities to investigate and treat the patient comprehen