Osteotome

Osteotomes as used in dental implantation

Bernhard Heine's osteotome

its parts and the application

An osteotome is a medical instrument used to cut through bone.

The expression comes from Osteo "bone" and Tomia "incision" (compare -tomy ) and is mainly used today for special flat chisels . Today, osteotomes are used in surgery whenever bone substance has to be cut.

1. In dentistry / maxillofacial surgery there are z. B. conical or cylindrical instruments of different diameters for the purpose of horizontal and / or vertical bone formation by means of blunt preparation.
2. The osteotome developed by Bernhard Heine , an instrument maker and orthopedic surgeon in Würzburg , in an animal experiment between 1824 and 1830 was used as a bone saw , among other things to open the skull . It was a kind of chainsaw that was driven with a hand crank and enabled a more precise cut than the hand saws, chisels or bone drilling common at the time. A special holder that was attached to the surgeon's upper body allowed operation with one hand. Heine's osteotome, which promoted the development of bone surgery technology and osteotomy as surgical bone orthopedics and for which he received the Montyon Prize for surgery from the French Academy of Sciences in 1836, is no longer used in surgery today.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Doris Schwarzmann-Schafhauser: Osteotom. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1084.
2. ↑ Hans Hekler: Bernhard Heine - honored by kings and courted by Tsar Nicholas . In: D'Kräz (Hrsg.): Contributions to the history of the city and space Schramberg. No. 9, Schramberg 1989, pp. 36-43 (on the importance of the historical osteotome).