The situation in response to a compressional stress may be somewhat less complicated, as we
later determined. In this case, as stress is applied and released, the electrical pulses measured on the
surface of the bone were similar to those measured on a simple piezoelectric crystal under the same
circumstance-oscillation between a positive or a negative value and a zero baseline without a polarity
reversal. Yet applying the same concept of bone growth with a negative polarity and resorption with a
positive polarity, the predicted growth pattern in response to the compressional stress was very similar
to that actually observed (59). In this case there is no need to invoke a rectification property, with the
orientation of the collagen fibers inherent in the normal structure of the long bone presumably being
sufficient to produce the necessary polarities (60).
In either event, bone may well be considered to be the first actual identified representative of
the theoretical "self-organizing systems." If one begins with a pre-existing bone structure whose pattern
is determined by genetic factors, provides a supply of collagen as soluble fibrils and an aqueous
environment with inorganic ion constituents capable of nucleating hydroxyapatite, then the application
of mechanical stress to the preexisting matrix will produce the deposition of new bone matrix in the
areas of compression, with collagen fibers oriented to best resist the applied stress. Of course in the
living system, the osteocytes and osteoblasts are stimulated by the negative electrical environment to
produce the additional collagen molecules, which then orient in the electrical field and subsequently
nucleate hydroxyapatite crystals from the inorganic components of the tissue fluids.
Summary
It is evident that over the past 50 years a steadily increasing body of scientific knowledge has
been acquired indicating the existence for functional electromagnetic properties within living
organisms. Not in the mystical, vitalistic sense proposed by Galvani but resting upon modern
knowledge of the electronic state of matter and electronic conducting mechanisms, as originally
proposed by Szent-Gyorgyi.
The perineural cells of the CNS have been shown to have some properties analogous to
semiconductivity and have been identified as responsible for the production and transmission of steady
or slowly varying electrical currents within that tissue. This electrical activity has many characteristics
of an organized data transmission and control system, with input parameters consisting of injury to the
organism and controlled output functions of growth and healing, as well as a "biasing" action upon the
function of the neurones proper. Specific solid-state electronic properties of the bone matrix have been
identified which constitutes a "self-organizing system" that produces bone growth in response to
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 42