When he was ten he was forced to leave school and lie flat on his back on a wooden board because he had been diagnosed with Scoliosis.
Studies in 2006 showed evidence of a linkage between idiopathic scoliosis and three microsatellite polymorphisms in the MATN1 gene (encoding for Matrilin 1, cartilage matrix protein), respectively consisting of 103, 101 and 99 base pairs, .
Busdriver - "Handfuls of Sky" and "Scoliosis Jones" from Jhelli Beam (2009)
In 1887 he earned his medical doctorate from Friedrich Wilhelm University with a dissertation on scoliosis titled Zur Pathologie und Therapie der Skoliose, and afterwards remained in Berlin as an assistant to Julius Wolff (1836-1902).
A related brace is the Boston brace (underarm brace, also known as a thoraco-lumbo-sacral orthosis, or TLSO), which is more commonly used for scoliosis.
Gemina was featured in an episode of the television program Miracle Workers, in which she was credited with inspiring a child with scoliosis.