"The chemistry of bone mineral"

In this treatise there has been a general introduction to the nature of bone mineral. Without the studies on the chemistry and structure of hydroxyapatites precipitated under physiological conditions it would have been difficult to interpret the data from bone mineral. Earlier studies on well-crystallized apatite systems helped to delineate the nature of the smaller bone crystals which are so difficult to study by standard crystallographic methods. It was shown that bone mineral is submicroscopic in crystal size and thus, has a high surface area which is highly reactive to specific chemical species. Bone mineral apatite is not an equilibrium phase and is slowly perfecting chemically and in crystal size. It is this lack of perfection resulting from crystalline imperfections due to (a) the presence of carbonate, sodium and other ions, and, (b) the deficiency in Ca and OH, which combine to make bone mineral metabolically active. In closing, it is necessary to point out that this is just a brief introduction to the subject of bone mineral. The interested reader is encouraged to seek more details in the bone text books of Vaughan (1975), Bourne (1972) and Zipkin (1973) and the various review articles noted in the body of this exposition.