The genesis and evolution of acrylic bone cement.

In 1957 John Chamley and I began to discuss the question of cement fixation of femoral prostheses. This was an independent development, because we had no knowledge of any other work in this area. Our conclusion was to grout in the prosthesis with a suitable cement. I selected a cold-curing acrylic denture repair material called Nu-Life as most appropriate. This material proved satisfactory in laboratory and clinical trials, and in 1958 Chamley undertook hip replacement using a cemented femoral prosthesis in six patients. This clinical success aroused great interest and some skepticism, because it was not always appreciated that Charnley and I had a substantial body of scientific data that justified this new approach to arthroplasty. Not surprisingly,the clinical aspects received most emphasis in the next decade. The scientific data were published mostly in the dental literature and were forgotten by the time cementation arthroplasty was generally accepted and so were rediscovered in subsequent years.