BOOKWALTER™ Retractor History

In the Beginning…

The idea for the BOOKWALTER™ Retractor first occurred to Dr. BOOKWALTER in the middle of the night in 1964, when he fell asleep holding a retractor during an emergency operation. Upon awakening, he found that it had not mattered that he had fallen asleep and he began to think about the possibility of replacing hand-held retractors with a mechanical device.

Initially, he experimented with the Smith Retractor, a table-fixed retractor sold by CODMAN as early as 1954. It fastened to the table at two points and various retractor blades could be moved and tightened around the perimeter. While on active duty at Fort Bragg in 1970-1972, Dr. Bookwalter made extensive modifications to a Smith Retractor, and later showed these modifications to the people at Codman, with whom he was developing a pistol grip needle holder. Attention shifted to the retractor, and over the next 3 years from about 1975 to 1978, development progressed, ending with an over the drapes table post, an oval ring, retractor blades on ratchet bars with straight ratchet mechanisms. The ratchet idea had come from the Bailey Gibbon Rib Approximator. As soon as the product was on the market, it was obvious that improvements were needed. This led to the very early addition of the tilt ratchet mechanism, which allowed the retractor blade to toe in, much as the hand-held retractor was toed in. In 1985, under the direction of then product director, David Hable, the horizontal flex bar and the segmented rings were added, both of which have been continuously developed and improved to the present time.

In 1991, the tilt ratchet mechanism was modified so that the release was on the side rather than at the back. This was to facilitate using the ring for rectal, vaginal, and orthopedic surgery, where the ring was perpendicular to the floor. Moving the ratchet release to the side allowed both levers to be released with a single squeeze of the thumb. Initially, the levers overlapped. This allowed inadvertent release at certain angles and was superceded fairly quickly by our current design in which the levers are very close together but not overlapping.

In 2003, we introduce the most significant improvement to the retractor in the last 10 years. The ROTILT Ratchet Mechanism, new patent protected technology, which allows the surgeon to rotate the tilt ratchet so that you can toe in, in planes other than the flat plane of the ring. It adds another degree of freedom, which is critically important in retracting deep tissues and permits precise blade placement while retaining the ability to quickly reposition the blade when necessary.

We move into the 21st century with continued commitment to provide the best table-fixed retractor in the world. We are committed to making every new addition and improvement compatible with products already in the field, so that the value of products already sold is enhanced by our improvements rather than made obsolete. Bookwalter, retractor, Dr Bookwalter, ratchet, tilt