62 THE GROWTH OF BONE 



Although grafts of periosteum into the neck will not 

 grow osseous tissue, thin shavings of bone itself, 

 similarly transplanted, will double in length and 

 thickness in most cases. In a number of experiments, 

 pieces of bone an inch or more in length, or even 

 comprising the whole shaft of a long bone, were 

 successfully transplanted from one dog to another. 

 In a classical case, Macewen built up a new humerus 

 for a lad who had lost the shaft by acute necrosis, 

 and although the wedges of bone, derived from 

 excisions for deformed legs, were not covered with 

 periosteum, they grew and consolidated, and now, 

 more than thirty years after, aided by the great 

 growth of the upper epiphysis which has contributed 

 the bulk of the humerus, the arm is strong and 

 useful. In other cases, fragments of bone have been 

 replaced to fill gaps in the skull, with excellent 

 results. 



Many surgeons besides Macewen have achieved 

 success with bone transplantation. For instance, a 

 piece of the fibula has been inserted to supply the 

 defect in the humerus left by the removal of an intra- 

 osseous cyst, and consolidation took place. The 

 lower jaw and the tibia have several times been 

 replaced in similar fashion by bone grafts from the 

 same patient. 



Macewen has secured osseous growth by trans- 

 plantation of bone chips into the omentum, and also, 

 after burying glass tubes in the middle of a long 

 bone, he has found the lumen of the tube invaded by 

 osteoblasts, and osseous islands laid down. In one 

 interesting case, a traumatic aneurysm formed from 



