Jacques Forestier: Forgotten Contributions of a Rheumatologist to Spine Surgery.

Abstract Jacques Forestier (1890-1978) was a well-known rheumatologist and radiologist whose innovations have revolutionized spinal neurosurgery and rheumatology. He was well known as “Doctor Lipiodol” for his accidental discovery of spinal myelography, which he later extrapolated to use in many bodily cavities and their pathologies. He was the first to describe “senile ankylosing hyperostosis of the spine,” which was later renamed as the “diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH).” Furthermore, he is credited for the first use of gold salts as a disease-modifying therapy (DMARD) for rheumatoid arthritis. The authors present a historical vignette which chronicles the life of Jacques Forestier and his contributions to the field of spinal neurosurgery.