Lines of Arrested Growth in the Long Bones in Childhood: The Correlation of Histological and Radiographic Appearances in Clinical and Experimental Conditions

Certain transverse lines in the region of the metaphysic of long bones were illustrated radiographically in 1923 before the Anatomical Association of Great Britain.1 In 19262 these lines were ascribed to a process of arrest of growth at the epiphysial cartilage, and this was shown to resemble in character the complete cessation of growth which occurs in adolescence during the normal union of the epiphyses of the long bones. At that time I was not fully acquainted with the history of these lines, and had access only to the descriptions given by certain French surgeons. In view of the criticism provoked by the views expressed in regard to the genesis of the lines by arrest of growth and the rôle of vitamins in bone formation, both experimental and clinical investigations have been extensively made, and the history of the problem has been pursued to the earliest records. It is singularly appropriate that the first description of transverse lines in bones occurred, like the most recent, in relation to rickets. Wegner, in 1874, fed minute quantities of phosphorus to young rabbits and chickens, and observed a transverse band of bone in the subepiphysial region. This layer stood out from the surrounding cancellous tissue so distinctly that Wegner said it could almost be grasped in the hand. This “phosphorus layer” of bone, a few millimetres in thickness, was adjacent to the growth cartilage, and its marrow-filled interstices were smaller than those in the normal cancellous bone of the shaft.