Читать книгу Materials for Biomedical Engineering - Mohamed N. Rahaman - Страница 37

Materials have been used to heal the human body since the early civilizations, although they were not described by the term biomaterials until more recently. Biomaterials have evolved enormously over time, particularly over the last several decades, and they are continuing to evolve with developments in materials science and engineering and a greater emphasis on incorporating biological principles and advances into their design (Section 1.3). While various systems have been used to describe this evolutional history of biomaterials, they all reflect the enormous increase in the sophistication, performance, and application of biomaterials over time. In order to highlight some of the major advances, we provide a brief description of the evolution of biomaterials over time, divided into a few historical periods (Ratner 2013). These periods cover the years prior to World War II, a few decades after World War II, and what can be described as a more contemporary period, covering approximately the last 30–40 years (Figure 1.9).

Figure 1.9 Illustrative summary of the evolution of biomaterials classified in terms of historical periods.