A collection of eighteen implants made of cow bone. These include plates (used for repairing fractures), screws (used for securing plates), intramedullary pegs, and narrow pins.
The collection also includes three portions of boiled cow bone, presumably kept to demonstrate the process of preparing such items.
The artifacts in this collection are itemized and described in this .pdf document.
Accession Number: 2025.med.52.1-18
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Cow Bone, Ivory
2025.med.52.5, a bone plate, is marked with the word “GERMANY”.
Dimensions are provided in the .pdf document describing this collection.
These implants have a variety of purposes corresponding to those of their metal equivalents. The vast majority, if not all, of the finished items are used for repairing fractures.
Boiled bone and ivory implants were used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for instance in cases in which patients had negative reactions to metal implants.
These items are in excellent condition as they were never used. However, for certain items, for instance the shorter pins or the blunt screw, it is difficult to tell whether they have been damaged or whether they are as designed.
A collection of bone screws, resembling those in this collection, were gathered by Dr. Robert W. Jackson and are catalogued as item 2023.JAC.277
Unknown (likely multiple makers, including Ernest Hey Groves. Bristol, UK.)
Date of Manufacture: Early 20th c.
These items were among a small collection of artifacts donated by Dr. Allan Gross of Mount Sinai Hospital on 14 April 2025.
They were given to Dr. Gross by Dr. Brian McGoey, an orthopaedic surgeon whose Father trained with Dr. William E. Gallie (1882 – 1959).
Bartek Szostakowski and Marlene DeMaio (2021). ArtiFacts: Ernest W. Hey Groves and His Intramedullary Pegs.” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 479, no. 1: 31–32.
William Edward Gallie and David Edwin Robertson (1919). The Repair of Bone. Bristol: J. Wright.
Anon. (1947) “William Edward Gallie Professor of Surgery, University of Toronto.” British Journal of Surgery 35, no. 137: 101–4.
Animal bone and ivory implants have a history of use between the adoption of anesthetics in the 19th century, which made the use of implants possible, and the development of biocompatible and corrosion resistant metal alloys over the 20th century.
This collection is attributed to the eminent Canadian surgeon and University of Toronto Professor of Surgery, William Edward Gallie (1882-1952). He likely gathered these items from a variety of makers, and may have made some himself. The bone screws resemble those attributed to the British orthopedic surgeon Ernest William Hey Groves (1872 – 1944) in the collection of orthopedic material gathered by Dr. Robert W. Jackson. One of the bone plates is marked with “GERMANY”, indicating a different origin. Three items, showing the early stages of preparing cow bone implants, may indicate that Gallie fabricated such items himself, or instructed others in their preparation.
Gallie was recognized for his work on bone repair and tendon fixation, as well as for his pioneering contribution to the transplantation of fibrous tissues in the form of living sutures (anon. 1947, 102).
Some insight into Gallie’s use of these items may be found in his classic 1919 paper, written with David Edwin Robertson entitled “ The Repair of Bone.” On page 238, in a section entitled “The Clinical Use of Boiled Bone”, Gallie provides the following passage, accompanied by several photographs, describing an experiment performed on an adult terrier.
“The first experiments were performed on dogs, and consisted of the production of fractures. and the immediate application of plates of boiled beef-bone, fastened in position with screws of the same material (Exps. 67. 68). Fig. 250 shows the gross appearance of the first animal so operated upon, two months after the operation. The specimen has been sectioned with a saw throughout half its length, the saw passing longitudinally through two of the screws. At the end of two months the fracture is united, the plate is solidly united to the fragments, a circulation is established in the plate and screws, and the absorption and replacement described above is well started. At the end of eight months, these plates can be recognized in the gross only as simple fusiform swellings, and the microscopic examination shows no dead bone present. After a year the bone is completely restored to its normal outline. (Figs. 251 to 255.)”