A study of the comparative methods for the rare earth determination in bones and the rare earth content in human bones

Abstract

A review of the rare earth elements and their content in various plant sources has been given. The biological and bacteriological aspects of the rare earth elements have been considered. The author has dealt briefly with the chemistry of the animal bone. The solubility of the cerium rich oxalates has been established. Three methods, the W.C. Robinson Method, the Calcium Sulfate Method, and the Oxalic Acid Method, for the chemical separation of the rare earth group from the other elements in bone ash have been investigated and the difficulties of each of the methods have been cited. A method separation based on the use of oxalic acid as the precipitating agent has been developed and its advantages have been enumerated. The rare earth elements in human bone have been identified by means of emission spectroscopy. Yttrium in human bone has been determined quantitatively by mean of emission spectroscopy. Any chemical determination of the rare earth elements in human bone presents extreme difficulty because of (1) the great similarity of calcium to the rare earth elements, (2) the very low concentration of the rare earth elements in human bone, and (5) the solubility of the oxalates due to the necessarily large volume of solution employed in the chemical separation.