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Abstract

Chapter 1 has shown us that the skeleton must withstand very high forces; because our muscles can only contract a small percentage of their length, we must amplify movements using levers that “spend rather than save forces,” as Borelli put it. In this chapter we begin to develop an understanding of how the biology of bone and cartilage provides tissues that can support these large forces day in and day out for a lifetime.

It is true, if we come to torture a bone with the Fire, it seems to confess that it consists of all the five Chymical Principles...

Clopton Havers (1691)

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Martin, R.B., Burr, D.B., Sharkey, N.A. (1998). Skeletal Biology. In: Skeletal Tissue Mechanics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2968-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-2968-9_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-3128-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-2968-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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