Chapter 1-Bone Grafts and Bone Graft Substitutes: A Brief History

Journal and index pages often block iframe embedding. This reader keeps the evidence details in Orthonotes and leaves the source page one click away.

Abstract

THE ORIGIN OF THE FIELD OF MEDICINE as a formal discipline has been traced to Africa by many historians. Imhotep's descriptions of ailments and treatments were found written on papyrus and translated in the mid-1800s by Edwin Smith [1]. Among the medical descriptions included in Imhotep's writings are cervical dislocations, skull fractures, and compound fractures [1]. Indeed, mummies found in Egyptian tombs have been found with crude braces constructed from wood planks and linen straps on their limbs representing some of the earliest accounts of orthopedics [2]. The use of autografts, allografts, and bone graft substitutes has interesting origins as well. The use of each graft type dates back several hundred years to apparently crude yet inspired methods and theories, which nonetheless set the stage for what we today consider state-of-the-art. Below is a brief history of each graft sub-group.