A brief biography of Julius Wolff is presented. It is demonstrated that the basis for the law he discovered is the graphic statics method of Karl Culmann and anatomist G.H. von Meyer’s data on the internal structure of the proximal femur. It was namely this cooperation between anatomist and engineer that led to the emergence of a new scientific field – the biomechanics of the skeleton. Wolff’s errors in biological concepts are reviewed – first of all, the claim that trabeculae always intersect perpendicular to each other