Historical folklore indicates that Asldepios (circa 900 BC), the fIrst western doctor of ancient Greece, treated many patients with rheumatic diseases of 1 joints,2. Later, Hippocrates (circa 400 BC), who claimed to have learned from Asklepios, used the term arthritis in reference to joint diseases: "When the disease of arthritis strikes, acute inflammation and pain attacks the joints of the body ... ." Indeed, arthritic joint disease dates much farther back into antiquity than Asklepios. Many modern anthropologists have noted degenerative joint disease in the fossils of Neanderthal man...

Cell mechanics and cellular engineering may be defined as the application of principles and methods of engineering and life sciences toward fundamental understanding of structure-function relationships in normal and pathological cells and the development of biological substitutes to restore cellular functions. This definition is derived from one developed for tissue engineering at a 1988 NSF workshop. The reader of this volume will see the definition being applied and stretched to study cell and tissue structure-function relationships. The best way to define a field is really to let the...

Historical folklore indicates that Asklepios (circa 900 BC), the fir t western doctor of ancient Greece, treated many patients with rheumatic diseases of 1 joints,2. Later, Hippocrates (circa 400 BC), who claimed to have learned from Asklepios, used the term arthritis in reference to joint diseases: "When the disease of arthritis strikes, acute inflammation and pain attacks the joints of the body ... ." Indeed, arthritic joint disease dates much farther back into antiquity than Asklepios. Many modern anthropologists have noted degenerative joint disease in the fossils of Neanderthal man...