In several cultures, bone deformation was a sign of social rank. For example, in the Mayan culture, head binding was done to give the skull a flattened forehead and a somewhat pointed top. Explain this in terms of Wolff's law. Provide examples.

Head Binding:




Foot Binding:

Examples: The raquet holding arm of tennis players becomes stronger than their other arm. Weightlifters who increase bone density because of their high weight training. Kick boxes (like Muah Thai) who repetitively kick things over and over again to increase the bone density. -sidenote- there is a sick video on youtube where a Muah Thai boxer breaks his opponent's leg by kicking it)

Wolff's Law: Bone is a living structure and adapts itself to its surroundings and demands placed on it. This was described and developed byJuliusWolff in 1892. In simple terms, bone grows in response to mechanical stress. The law helps us understand how to encourage bone remodeling and avoid bone stock loss.

Wolff's Law: function determines form
bones will adapt depending on the demands that are placed on the bones.

Wolff's law is directly related to the musculoskeletal system that gives the animals the ability to move to more favorable conditions by using the muscles and skeletal system to engage in movement.

Wolff's Law states that every change in the form and the function of a bone, or in its function alone, is followed by certain definite changes in its internal architecture and secondary alterations in its external conformation. It is also known as Delpech's law.

Wolff's Law: Healthy bones will adapt to the pressures it is placed under. If pressure on a bone is heavier, the bone will become stronger to be able to carry that sort of pressure. And if the pressure placed on a bone is less, the bone will become weaker because the mind will tell the body that it is not as important to form bone anymore.

Examples:

• Foot binding in China. In the 10th century young girls at the age of 6 would wrap their feet tightly with cloth and then wear a shoe that was very strong. The shoe would be only 4 to 6 inches. When the foot begins to grow, the bones will break and reassemble in an arched position. This shows that bones can form according a very Strong mold it in placed in.
  The desired result was a foot about 3 inches long, called a "golden lotus" (image below).
  Sometimes a girl's feet were bound as early as five years old, in which case four of the toes would usually break within a year while the big toe would remain intact.
  The results of foot binding have caused disabilities in some elderly Chinese women.
• Head Flattening: The ancient Egyptians used to flatten or shape their children's heads to create a more cosmetically pleasing head shape. The Aboriginal tribes in Australia also were found to do the same. Even in the United States, the Chinookan tribes ( north west) and the Choctaw (south east) were known for such practices.
  • the Choctaw used to strap the infants head to a cradle board to create the flat head.
  • Choose infants because the ability for the skull to change shape easier
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• Infection was common. Girls would develop ingrown toenails and infections would lead to other diseases and in some cases resulted in death. In some cases, the ball of the foot began to grow into the heel. Such deformities later caused other medical problems such as breaking hips and other bones because the women weren't able to stand and move properly.

• Fighter often kick objects to harden their bone to develop striking power to attack their opponents and which increases their bone density within that attack area while others may do this to reduce pain response on their striking tissue so they can have an increase of bone density.
• In Eastern Burma, one of the Padaung Tribe (Long Neck Lady)'s customs is to wear bronze rings around their necks. Legend explains that the rings are symbols of charm against the dangers and bites (attacks) from tigers. This distorts the growth of their collarbones and make them look as if they have long necks - which they don't. This row of brass rings do not actually stretch their necks but in fact squash the vertebrae and collar bones. A woman generally has about twenty or more rings around her neck.

Process (Wikipedia)

First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood. This concoction caused any narcotized flesh to fall off. Then her toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections. To prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged. Silk or cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the same blood and herb mix as before. Each of the toes were then broken and wrapped in the wet bandages, which would constrict when drying, and pulled tightly downwards toward the heel. There may have been deep cuts made in the sole to facilitate this. This ritual would be repeated every two days, with fresh bindings. Every time the bandages were rebound they would be pulled tighter making this process continually painful.

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• Astronauts who are in space will not apply pressure on their legs so their bones will become very weak. When they return to earth however, if they had such weak bones they would have trouble walking. So, in space, they must continuously exercise to ensure that their bones stay strong.
• Flight doctors recommend fifteen minutes of exercise daily on seven to fourteen day missions and thirty minutes of exercise daily on thirty day missions.
• Astronauts can use a treadmill as a form of resistance exercise, other forms of resistance exercise include: using a rowing machine or using a exercise bike.

More Examples:

• Tennis players: bones in the racket holding arm become stronger than those of the other arm because so much repetitive stress is placed upon those bones in particular.
  • eg: scapula's, shoulders, forearms
    
• Weight lifters: increase in bone density from repeated practice and training for lifting heavy weights.
• Astronauts are another example of this theory. They spend a long time in space, which will often return to Earth with weaker bones. This is because there is no gravity stressing force on the bones of the astronauts. Their bodies have reabsorbed much of the mineral that was previously in their bones.

• Fighters: knuckle push-ups - increase the strength in the knuckles so as not to allow the fighter to hurt themselves or break otherwise easily breakable bones when they're fighting. Fighters will do things knuckle push-ups as a form of conditioning, for example, so the impacts of strikes are only supplementary conditioning, as in both sparring and striking practice as well as competitive contest. This is so the body can directly focus on technique and nervous recruitment and not tissue adaptation, which can be distracting.
• Ball Sports: There is evidence that people who play ball sports have significantly lower stress fractures than people who do not play ball sports.
• Soccer Players: Usually have stronger shins and feet because of the pressure of the ball and the contact with other feet and shins. Even though they were shin guards, the bone is till under a lot of pressure due to the clashing of legs.

Associated laws

Davis's Law is used in anatomy to describe how soft tissue models along imposed demands. It is the corollary to Wolff's Law. It is used in part to describe muscle-length relationships and to predict rehabilitation and postural distortion treatments as far as muscle length is concered.