The fact that bovine cartilage contains a substance (or substances) which will accelerate the healing of experimental wounds is well established and documented.1-6 This effectiveness is true for parenteral use of a specific extract of the material as well as for local application.7,8
One of several areas of research into which these interesting observations have led us is an investigation into means of potentiating the considerable activity already demonstrated in our standard preparations. These have involved investigations of the effect of the physical state of subdivision of the material, studies on the effect of obtaining the starting material from progressively younger animals (specifically calves and fetuses), and research on the effectiveness of cartilage from an entirely different animal order (sharks). All of these studies have yielded very interesting information and the results are detailed below.
In addition, we have decided that this paper, dealing as it does with