The paper is concerned with the experimental analysis of the distribution of stress across the neck of the femur (thigh bone). The case considered was that of a man supported on one leg, a position which imposes maximum static load on the femur. The frozen stress method of three dimensional photoelasticity was adopted as the means of solution. A procedure was devised for correcting the results obtained from a homogeneous photoelastic model to apply to the case of bone which was considered to be composed of two main regions, a hard shell and a softer core. The bending and axial stress components so determined show a distribution which can be predicted by an engineering analysis but the shear stress distribution is not so satisfactory.