INFLUENCE OF A LOCAL EXCESS OF CALCIUM AND PHOSPHORUS ON THE HEALING OF FRACTURES

Abstract

As a result of recent advances in physiologic chemistry, many normal and pathologic processes are being considered from a chemical standpoint rather than anatomically or physiologically. Among these processes the formation of new bone in normal growth and in the repair of injury is receiving considerable attention. By certain writers, notably Leriche in France and Bancroft in this country, the process of ossification has been divorced from the influence of cells and is regarded as a purely chemical reaction which takes place extracellularly in the tissues around a fracture. Accompanying this changing view is the tendency to explain non-union on the basis of a general deficiency of calcium and phosphorus in the blood or a local deficiency of these elements at the site of the fracture. Hence some workers have attempted to influence the rate of healing of the bone by changing the concentration of calcium and phosphorus in the