New reprint of Wolff's Law
Since June 2010, Wolff's more than 100 year old publication is available again in German book shops as reprinted paperback edition. Shortly also called the "Wolff's Law", it establishes that structure and shape of bone permanently adapt to loading conditions. His work is the most important and relevant stand work for orthopaedics and is still cited in scientific papers and international medical congresses.
You are here:
Wolff's Law
The key message of Wolff's law of the transformation reads "As a consequence of primary shape variations and continuous loading, or even due to loading alone, bone changes its inner architecture according to mathematical rules and, as a secondary effect and governed by the same mathematical rules, also changes its shape."
Simplified this says that the structure and shape of bone permanently adapt to the loading conditions. Wolff regarded this law of the transformation, which had also been influenced by Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), as a "building block to the completion of the building" of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) theory.
Julius Wolff's book is available again
Scientists of the Julius Wolff Institute (JWI) and the Centre of Musculoskeletal Surgery (CMSC) of the Charité have published a reprint of one of the most famous and relevant orthopaedic books.
Additional to the 150 pages of the original work, the reprint also contains biographic and historical documents, for example letters to important scientific colleagues. The reproduction of Wolff's work was realised with the support of the Library of veterinary medicine of the Freie Universität Berlin, das Archive of the Humboldt University and the Jewish Museum in Fankfurt am Main that provided the original publication as well as other biographic documents for the scan and research. The Julius Wolff Institute thanks all partners for the excellent collaboration and support.
Here we listed an introduction into the publications written by Julius Wolff after whom the institute was named:
Julius Wolff MD; Translated and abridged by M.O. Heller, W.R. Taylor, N. Aslanidis, and Georg N. Duda
The Classic: On the Inner Architecture of Bones and its Importance for Bone Growth (Ueber die innere Architectur der Knochen und ihre Bedeutung für die Frage vom Knochenwachsthum)
Clin Orthop Rel Res. 2010 Apr, Volume 468(4) 1056-1065
Wolff J.
The classic: on the theory of fracture healing. 1873.
Clin Orthop Rel Res. 2010 Apr, Volume 468(4) 1052-1055