2 How AOVET started
Getting together Christoph Uehlinger told von Salis about Straumann’s involvement in the development of instruments and implants for fracture care in humans, and von Salis immediately recognized that Straumann could be instrumental in solving his third problem concerning trauma surgery in horses: the design of appropriate instruments and implants. Von Salis helped treat Straumann’s dog and started visiting the dog and its owner at their home in Waldenburg. He had prepared himself very well for his first visit. He took his publications on horse anesthesia and a Dutch book by Verhaar on operative fracture management in large animals with him to Waldenburg [47]. In those days fracture treatment in horses was in its infancy. The two men got along very well from the start. Indeed, their first conversation lasted until 3:00 am in the morning. When von Salis asked Straumann at the end of their meeting if he could help him with the instrumentation problem, the engineer promised every kind of help and support, including the offer to use his laboratories. As a first step Straumann set his metallurgist, Dr Ortrun Pohler, to work on the “animal-project”. She was already experienced in the research and development of AO implants and was in close collaboration with the AO Research Institute in Davos. They agreed to meet every Wednesday afternoon at the Institute in Waldenburg to explore the conditions under which the AO techniques and equipment could be applied to fracture management in animals. Björn von Salis attempted to involve Christoph Uehlinger in the devlopment of implants for the veterinarians. When he declined, von Salis asked Feri and Geri Kása (Fig 10a–b) who jumped at the chance because they previously had a frustrating experience treating a radioulnar fracture without proper instrumentation and implants. A week later they joined Björn von Salis on his visit to Waldenburg as they were searching for more efficient internal fixation methods to overcome the limitations of the common nailing, pin, and cerclage techniques they were using so far. Although they had developed particular skills in nailing fractures in small birds (Fig 11a–c) [48], this was the start of intense work on veterinary osteosynthesis in large and small animals.
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a
b Fig 10a–b Ferenc (a) and Gerhilde (b) Kása, the first small animal surgeons working with AO techniques.