Acknowledgements

The preparation of this Atlas has taken over three years of work and it has been possible thanks to the computer system of the Müller Foundation in Barcelona and to the special dedication of several people. Miquel Sales is one of the group that reviewed the 54.280 fractures in Berne. He reviewed several hundreds of clinical cases in Barcelona, composed the book from the editorial design standpoint and, with his relentless criticism, improved every one of my proposals. Miquel Videla did the statistical analysis and selected many of the radiographic examples of each subgroup. Jose Ceamanos is the photographer who handled, one by one, the images that appear in the book, obtaining the best possible quality and salvaging for publication many good cases that would have been lost otherwise. Rafael Orozco Jr digitized hundreds of slides with praiseworthy diligence. Some of the doctors who are now residents of our Red Cross Hospital in L’Hospitalet, Barcelona, like Ana Navarro and Miguel Velasco have filled their lifes with file dust. The X-ray technician Antonio Albós is responsible for the best radiographical pictures that illustrate the Atlas and to his meticulous work we owe some degree of preservation of our own coronary arteries.

I especially want to show my gratefulness and admiration towards those who have been my surgical co-workers through so many years. Their personal cases published are only examples of their technical capability. Joan Girós, who is succeeding me in the Chairmanship of the Service, Carlos Solano, Luis Orozco, Jorge Muriano, Albert González, Eduardo Norberto, Carlos Barcons, Joan Cervelló, Jordi Bertran, that along with Miquel Sales and Miquel Videla, co-authors of this book, form the team of the Red Cross Hospital of L’Hospitalet which Maurice Müller likes to call his Barcelona School. This is the best possible compliment to us. Diego Fernandez´s cooperation in this book is especially beloved to me because of the many years of "brotherhood”, with the benefit of sharing Maurice´s temper, love and teaching. I also want to express my gratitude to another two very beloved swiss masters: Urs Heim, former president of the AO , and Reinhold Ganz, who succeeded Professor Müller at the Inselhospital of Berne. Also to Serge Nazarian for his contribution to the book, a magnificent summary of the philosophy of the classification, and to Peter Koch, who has supervised the classification of the 54.280 fractures reviewed with infinite patience: an incredible feat.

Vicente Corbatón and Mariano Núñez Samper, co-workers at my former Orthopaedic Surgery Service of the Red Cross Hospital in Madrid, have shared with us some of the published cases and nowadays are masters of internal fixation. My thanks also to Enrique Queipo de Llano who has contributed the cases of diaphyseal fractures treated by interlocking nailing, a technique in which he is an expert. This contribution complemented along with his X-rays the theoretical proposals of the third edition of the AO Manual. José Maria Cañadell and José Luis Imizcoz from the Clínica Universitaria de Navarra, great contributors to the difussion of the AO technique in Spain, have also been willing to render homage to Professor Müller by furnishing an exceptional case, as have Xavier Gallard from our Faculty of Medicine of Barcelona and Jordi Galí and Carme Puig from the Hospital of Barcelona.

We, the authors, feel that the first compensation to our work is to be able to thank to Antonio Navarro, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery of our Universidad Autónoma of Barcelona, for writing the Preface to the Spanish edition. His writing, extensively thought through, is especially dear to us, not only because of what it means as a contribution, for his thinking about the analysis of science in the abstract, but especially because of the intellectual greatness that is implied in his reflective process about a school that, in its origin, was not percieved as his. The experienced reader will discover that his preface is something more than a proof of friendship. We recommend it should be read slowly.

We would also like to thank Professor Christopher Colton for the Prologue to the English edition. On the contrary to what happened with Antonio Navarro, Colton is the best Anglo-Saxon exponent of the AO technique, to such an extent that at the time we were preparing this edition he was the President of the AO International Foundation. Nevertheless, it seems that Colton and Navarro coincide in the essential: they give importance to the application of the technique which respects the principles of bone biology.

Our congratulations to the staff of Springer-Verlag for their effort in the difficult undertaking of preserving the original quality of the published images. Very few publications succeed in obtaining such accurate imagery that hairline fractures can be detected..