F OR some years we have been interested in and have collected cases of refracture of bones at the same location. To us this has meant the location of the refracture was determined by the trauma being identical; that the bones had an anatomic site of weakness; or that there remained a point or points of weakness after healing. In most instances it is the latter assumption that is correct. HappiIy, refracture is not a common occurrence. Although Buttner quotes KepeI as finding nine in sixty-six forearm fractures in children and Bruner as finding seven in thirtyfour. The incidence, therefore, in these series would approximate 14 per cent and 20 per cent. Buttner had 14 in 238, or 6 per cent. We cannot state with accuracy our own incidence of refracture in the forearm bones but we have collected eighteen cases while caring for some 280 forearm fractures, making an approximate incidence of 6 per cent aIso. As the report of refractures adds little to the prestige of a chnic, and human nature being what it is, I am sure the larger series are not pubIished, perhaps not even reckoned. In the interest of preventing the avoidable refractures we present this series. As we will presently show the great majority of refractures occur in the forearm of children. To prevent some of these we would hav,e to change the nature of chiIdren. That vve cannot do this should give us no chagrin; but on the other hand if we knew more about the strength of bony union, many refractures would be eliminated. Practically, by admonishing our patients to be cautious, we avoid refracture in older patients who retain unpleasant memories of their injury, but children soon forget and run and play with the same abandon as before. Our knowIedge of the strength of their bony union is quite inexact. We know more about it, in the tibia of the rat but this knowledge cannot be transIated in human terms. If we are quite honest about it, there are many things about the heaIing of fractures which we do not know. Only a few years ago we were debating whether or not periosteum produced callus. Today there are still those who say a little displacement makes for more cahus and stronger union. Some add that a little motion at the fracture site stimulates calIus formation. Although Eggers has devised ingenious experiments on the value of compression, he has not convinced Watson-Jones vvho believes it is the immobilization that is important. Bohler on the other hand believes shortening of long bones is friendly to healing and distraction the great deterrent. In the light of this confusion our Iack of knowledge about the strength of union is understandable, regrettable as it may be. That certain fractures in the forearm ol children are sIow to heal has been known bv many for a long time. Dr. Herbert Bergamini twenty-five years ago taught that middIe third fractures in children shouId be splinted twelve to fourteen weeks or bowing or refracture might occur. Watson-Jones says, “Fractures of the radius and ulna are usually united in 6 weeks,” but he adds, “When there is a fracture at the junction of the middle and lower third of the ulna it is unsafe to remove the plaster until there is radiographic evidence of union.” The crux of the matter is what constitutes radiographic evidence of union, what is the strength of the union by “periostea1” callus. How strong is the union when cahus is present on the concave side and absent on the convex? W’hat is the significance of finding the bone ends still discernible in a sheath of “periosteal” callus? In this group of children there were twentyfour refractures through the bone or bones at the same location as the first fracture. Eighteen were in the forearm, four in the clavicle and two in the tibia. The age of these patients varied from seven to fourteen years in the forearm refractures, five to twelve ,vears in the cIavicuIar ones. The two boys who refractured their tibias were both seven years old. Of the forearm refracture cases, five were girls and thirteen were boys. The intervals between the first and second forearm fractures were as indicated in TahIe I.