Introduction The era in which we live has been described by engineers as The Materials Age. Itis marked by a bewildering variety of materials developed since the turn of the century at an exponential rate. As surgeons, we are familiar with the metallurgical advances which have given us corrosion resistant alloys, as well as the many developments in the chemistry of plastics, which in some instances have been found to be useful in surgery. Another field of materials—ceramics—has also had tremendous growth in the last 20 years. Ceramic materials are now produced which have considerable strength and impact resistance, as well as great chemical resistivity. The latter characteristic is of prime interest to the surgeon, as the most important property of any surgical material is in its inertness in the environment of human tissue. Although strong, these new ceramic materials have the disadvantage of being extremely rigid. Attempts to produce