The History of the Role of Urologists in the Spinal Units in the United Kingdom

Spinal injuries have been known since antiquity and until 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 pyelonephritis and pressure sores. Any treatment was palliative, easing the patient’s pathway to the grave.