Synthetic Plastic Materials in Surgery

Abstract

PolyethyleneIt has been known for many years that ethylene could be polymerized, but until 1936, when a new process involving high pressures was devised in England, only liquid and semiliquid polymers were obtained. Polyethylene was first employed experimentally in the United States in 1941.⁵⁷ The commercial use of polyethylene began here in 1943, when it was first produced in quantity.¹ Ethylene has a simple chemical structure, and polyethylene, which is a polymer of ethylene, is —theoretically, at least — the simplest structure in which a chain polymer can exist. It consists of carbon atoms joined in a chain, each . . .