Bone vessels and cartilage. In the human body at birth, there are over 270 bones, but many of these fuse together during development, leaving a total of 206 separate bones in the adult, not counting numerous small sesamoid bones. The largest bone in the body is the femur or thigh-bone, and the smallest is the stapes in the middle ear. The Greek word for bone is ὀστέον ("osteon"), hence the many terms that use it as a prefix – such as osteopathy. Bone is not uniformly solid, but consists of a flexible matrix (about 30%) and bound minerals (about 70%) which
Bone as osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Within any single bone, the tissue is woven into two main patterns, known cortical and cancellous bone, and each with different appearance and characteristics. The hard outer layer of bones is composed of cortical bone also called compact bone being much denser than cancellous bone. It forms the hard exterior (cortex) of bones. The cortical bone gives bone its smooth, white, and solid appearance, and accounts for 80% of the total bone mass of an adult human skeleton. It facilitates bone's main functions: to support the whole body, protect organs, provide levers for movement, and store