Transplantation of a portion of the tibia into the spine for Pott's disease

Heterotopic bone transplantation for defects in the human skeleton had been attempted since the beginning of surgery. In the modem period experimental attempts at bone transplanting or grafting go back to Meekren in the seventeenth century, and then to John Hunter, Flourens, Wolff, Other, MacEwen and many others. However, these reports describe only occasional experimental attempts to place heteroplastic bone or replace autoplastic bone splints in fractures. Bone graft surgery as a planned, carefully designed procedure started with this 1911 paper by Fred Houdlett Albee (1876-1945) of New York City (Fig. 1, not shown). His method was immediately recognized and very quickly adopted by orthopedic and trauma surgeons throughout the civilized world.