show how the back works in health and disease as an introduction to our understanding of the yogic way of handling the problem.

Historical Perspective

Lumbosacral pain has been a recognized human affliction for a long time. Hippocrates also talks about lumbosacral pain. In western medicine, we find the very first reports on naked eye discriptions of the normal and degenerate spine in the writings of vesalius in 1555. Virchow first described what is now known as a lumbar disc prolaplse in 1875. Middleton and Teacher first described lumbar disc herniation. Goldthwaite in 1905 described the result of manipulating the lower back of a patient who was thought to be suffering from a sacroiliac subluxation. The descriptions of different types of back pain, their causes and management are described in Ayurveda texts that are said tobe 2000 to 3000 years old. 2000 to 3000 years old.

A Growing Problem

Backache is remarkably common. At any one time some 30-40 per cent of the population have backache and between 80 and 90 per cent experience it at some time in their lives. It affects both sexes and all ages, from children to the elderly , but is most prevalent in the middle years.

The amount of working time lost due to back problems has increased enormously in recent years. The documented figures are about 100,000,000 working days per year in England and Wales, two or three times more than 20 years ago. In fact, this dramatic rise