This monograph was written fifty years ago by John Charnley when he was in his late thirties. Always a highly-practical orthopaedic surgeon with great clarity of thought, he combined his vast experience of fracture treatment gleaned from industrial Manchester and service in World War II to produce this work which is full of basic commonsense. It should be compulsory reading for all those involved in learning the art of fracture management and all students of orthopaedic surgery.

Open reduction of fractures and internal fixation is commonplace and successful in many cases in the 1990% but is not the total answer to fracture treatment. In many parts of the world, initial treatent, and frequently the final treatment, is by closed methods, and this book has become the bible for many isolated and lonely junior orthopaedic surgeons in remote areas.

The basic principles described are a benchmark and, like the Charnley hip, a gold standard from which to start if progress is to be made in the future.

The John Charnley Trust has decided to reprint this Golden Jubilee edition of The Closed Treatment of Common Fractures for the next generation of orthopaedic surgeons in training, to coincide with the Millennium.