Bone transplantation and tissue engineering. Part II: bone graft and osteogenesis in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Duhamel, Haller, Ollier and MacEwen)

In the 18th century, the fate of allografts and their role in bone formation became of interest to many orthopaedic surgeons. A controversy over the science of osteogenesis, the formation of bone, had emerged following the opposing views of Duhamel and von Haller. Duhamel noted that the periosteum had a deep osteogenic layer, which he termed the “cambium layer”. However, von Haller claimed the opposite: the periosteum was not osteogenic. In the 19th century, Ollier performed comprehensive studies on the periosteum. Ollier’s experiments were published in two volumes entitled “Traite Experimental et clinique de la regeneration des os” in 1867. His conclusion was that transplanted periosteum and bone survived and could become osteogenic under proper conditions. The controversy was furthered by MacEwen who believed, contrary to Duhamel and Ollier, that the periosteum had no osteogenetic power and was purely a limiting membrane giving direction to bone growth but taking no active part in it. This manuscript describes this period of controversies about the osteogenesis of the transplanted bone, marrow and periosteum that would eventually die or not and be replaced by surrounding tissue or be active for osteogenesis. Whether bone grafts are a form of passive scaffolding or active in osteogenesis was the main question about auto and allografts in the 18th and 19th centuries. In response to this challenge, many papers were written to defend each side of the argument.