The healing of circumscribed defects in the mandibles of albino rats.

N papers have been pub­ lished on the repair of circumscribed defects in a number of bones of experi­ mental animals (Melcher and Irving 1962; Kramer, Killey and Wright 1968; Agsen 1968). The repair of extraction wounds in the jaws of experimental animals has also been extensively studied (Huebsch et al 1952; Boyne and Kruger 1962; Pietrokovski 1967; Tudo 1968; Huebsch and Hansen 1969; Mesrobian and Shklar 1969), as has the healing of mandibular defects associated with operative proce­ dures (Thompson 1958; Costich, Young­ blood and Walden 1964). Melcher (1967) described the wound repair in the perio­ dontium of the rat incisor; and Retief and Dreyer (1967) described the healing of circumscribed defects in the rat man­ dible associated with local neural damage. The present study was undertaken to elucidate the repair mechanism of circum­ scribed defects in the rat mandible.