̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Jenna Dittmar

Fashion for pointy shoes unleashed a plague of bunions in medieval Britain

fpjl2 — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:12:51 +0000

Researchers analysing skeletal remains in Cambridge find a dramatic increase in ‘hallux valgus’ around the time that pointed shoes became de rigueur in the 1300s.

Cancer rates in medieval Britain were around ten times higher than previously thought, study suggests

fpjl2 — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 08:20:03 +0000

̽��ֱ��first study to use x-rays and CT scans to detect evidence of cancer among the skeletal remains of a pre-industrial population suggests that between 9-14% of adults in medieval Britain had the disease at the time of their death.

This puts cancer prevalence in a time before exposure to tumour-inducing chemicals from industry and tobacco at around ten times higher than previously thought, according to researchers.

Prior research into historic cancer rates using the archaeological record has been limited to examining the bone exterior for lesions. It suggested that cancer was rare, affecting less than 1% of the population.

A team led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have now coupled visual inspection with radiological imaging to analyse 143 skeletons from six medieval cemeteries in and around the city of Cambridge, UK, dating from the 6th to the 16th century.

̽��ֱ��findings of the study are published today in the journal Cancer.

“ ̽��ֱ��majority of cancers form in soft tissue organs long since degraded in medieval remains. Only some cancer spreads to bone, and of these only a few are visible on its surface, so we searched within the bone for signs of malignancy,” said lead author Dr Piers Mitchell, who conducted the research as part of the ‘After the Plague’ project.

“Modern research shows a third to a half of people with soft tissue cancers will find the tumour spreads to their bones. We combined this data with evidence of bone metastasis from our study to estimate cancer rates for medieval Britain.”

“We think the total proportion of the medieval population that probably suffered with a cancer somewhere in their body was between nine and fourteen per cent,” said Mitchell, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Archaeology.

“Using CT scans we were able to see cancer lesions hidden inside a bone that looked completely normal on the outside,” said study co-author and After the Plague researcher Dr Jenna Dittmar.

“Until now it was thought that the most significant causes of ill health in medieval people were infectious diseases such as dysentery and bubonic plague, along with malnutrition and injuries due to accidents or warfare.”

“We now have to add cancer as one of the major classes of disease that afflicted medieval people,” Dittmar said.

However, the researchers point out that in modern Britain some 40-50% of people have cancer by the time they die, making the disease 3-4 times more common today than the latest study suggests it was during medieval times.

They say that a variety of factors likely contribute to contemporary rates of the disease, such as the effects of tobacco, which began to be imported into Britain in the 16th century with the colonising of the Americas.

̽��ֱ��researchers also point to the cancerous effects of pollutants that have become ubiquitous since the industrial revolution of the 18th century, as well as the possibility that DNA-damaging viruses are now more widespread with long-distance travel. Moreover, our longer lifespans give cancer much more time to develop.

̽��ֱ��skeletal remains investigated for the latest study came from sites near three villages in the vicinity of Cambridge, as well as three cemeteries uncovered within the medieval centre of the university city, including the site of a former Augustinian friary, and the site of a former charitable hospital that cared for the sick and destitute (now part of St John’s College).

Very few of the excavated remains were complete, so the team limited themselves to individuals with intact spinal column, pelvis and femora (thigh bones). Modern research shows these to be the bones most likely to contain secondary malignancies – or metastases – in people with cancer.

̽��ֱ��remains of 96 men, 46 women, and an individual of unknown sex, had their vertebrae, femurs and pelvis inspected and then imaged using x-rays and CT scans. ̽��ֱ��team found signs of malignancy in the bones of five individuals – a minimum prevalence of 3.5%. These were mostly in the pelvis, although one middle-aged man had small lesions throughout his skeleton suggesting a form of blood cancer.

Research shows that CT scans detect bone metastases around 75% of the time, and only a third to half of cancer deaths involve spread to the bone, so the team projected that 9-14% of medieval Britons developed cancer.

However, they caution that the sample size is inevitably limited and diagnosing cancer in those lain dead for many centuries is somewhat challenging.

“We need further studies using CT scanning of apparently normal skeletons in different regions and time periods to see how common cancer was in key civilizations of the past,” added Mitchell.

CT scanning used to uncover remnants of malignancy hidden inside medieval bones provides new insight into cancer prevalence in a pre-industrial world.

We searched within the bone for signs of malignancy

Piers Mitchell

Left: Jenna Dittmar. Right: Bram Mulder

Left: Excavated medieval bone from spine showing cancer metastases (white arrow). Right: CT scan of bone from a medieval skull showing metastasis hidden within (white arrow).

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Inequality in medieval Cambridge was ‘recorded on the bones’ of its residents

fpjl2 — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 08:05:11 +0000

Life in medieval Cambridge was toughest for the ordinary workers, according to a study of the “skeletal trauma” found on remains from three different cemeteries.

Infant bodies were ‘prized’ by 19th century anatomists, study suggests

fpjl2 — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 07:23:45 +0000

A new study of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge anatomy collection suggests that the bodies of foetuses and babies were a “prized source of knowledge” by British scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were dissected more commonly than previously thought and quite differently to adult cadavers.

Historical research combined with the archaeological assessment of collection specimens shows that foetus and infant cadavers were valued for the study of growth and development, and were often kept in anatomical museums.

Researchers say that socio-cultural factors and changes in the law, as well as the spread of infectious disease during the industrial revolution, dictated the availability of these small bodies for dissection.

̽��ֱ��study, conducted by Jenna Dittmar and Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, is the first to look specifically at how British scientists investigated the changing anatomy of childhood during the 1800s. ̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the Journal of Anatomy.

̽��ֱ��researchers undertook studies of the skeletal collection retained from the former dissecting room of Cambridge’s department of anatomy, with specimen dates ranging from 1768 to 1913.

While the bodies of adults typically underwent a craniotomy - opening of the top of the skull using a saw - the researchers found that anatomists generally kept the skulls of foetuses and young children in one piece. From a total of 54 foetal and infant specimens in the collection, just one had undergone a craniotomy.

Careful study of the bone surface revealed that soft tissues had been gently removed using knives and brushes in order to preserve as much of the bones of the head as possible, although surgical instruments would have been similar to those used on the fully-grown. Tools for other purposes in adults, such as ‘bone nipper’ forceps, were likely used for dividing diminutive ribcages.

̽��ֱ��research suggests that anatomists kept the skeletal remains of foetuses and infants for further study and use as teaching aids, whereas adults were frequently reburied after dissection.

“Foetal and infant bodies were clearly valued by anatomists, illustrated by the measures taken to preserve the remains intact and undamaged,” says Dittmar.

“ ̽��ֱ��skulls appear to have been intentionally spared to preserve them for teaching or display. This may explain why so few children with signs of dissection on their bones have been recovered from the burial grounds of hospitals or parish churches, compared with adults.”

Literature from the late 18th century shows that the size of infant bodies made them preferable for certain ‘anatomical preparations’ in teaching, particularly for illuminating the anatomy of the nervous and circulatory systems, which required an entire body to be injected with coloured wax and displayed.

“ ̽��ֱ��valuable and unique knowledge that could only be obtained from the examination of these developing bodies made them essential to the study of anatomy,” says Dittmar.

“During much of the 18th and 19th century, executed criminals provided the main legal access to cadavers, and it was previously thought that dissection of young children was relatively rare. However, changes in the law may have resulted in infant dissections becoming more common.”

̽��ֱ��Murder Act in 1752 gave the judiciary power to allow executed murderers - almost entirely men - to be used for medical dissection. These felons hardly made a dent in the growing demand for bodies, and a black market flourished.

Bodies acquired (often grave robbed) by gangs of ‘resurrectionists’, or body-snatchers, were usually sold by the inch, so those of infants were not very profitable, although there are records of ‘smalls’ being traded.

̽��ֱ��Anatomy Act of 1832 allowed workhouses and hospitals to donate the bodies of the poor if unclaimed by family, in an attempt to abate the resurrectionists. Infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis were common killers during the industrial revolution, and a major cause of infant death in hospitals and beyond. Workhouses were desperate places, and nearly always lethal to infants.

Until 1838, a legal loophole did not require a stillborn baby to be registered, and a body could be easily sold to an anatomist through an intermediary. But the New Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 may have had the most significant repercussions of any law for infant material in anatomy collections, say the researchers.

̽��ֱ��Act ended parish relief for unmarried women and the availability of assistance from the father of an illegitimate child. Part of Victorian society’s attempt to curtail the illegitimate birth rate, the law succeeded only in contributing to dire situations for poor unwed women, mainly in service positions, who fell pregnant.

“This left very few options for these women: the workhouse, prostitution, abortion and infanticide - all of which were life-threatening,” says Mitchell. By the 1860s, infanticide in England had reached epidemic proportions.

“Our research shows that the major sources of the bodies of very young children were from stillborn babies of destitute mothers, babies who died from infectious diseases, those dying in charitable hospitals, and unmarried mothers who secretly murdered their new-born to avoid the social stigma of single parenthood,” says Mitchell.

“Poor and desperate women at the time of the industrial revolution could not only save the cost of a funeral by passing their child’s body to an anatomist, but also be paid as well. This money would help feed poor families, so the misfortune of one life lost could help their siblings to survive tough times.”

Top inset image: the only foetal skull in the Cambridge to have undergone a craniotomy.

A study of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge anatomy collection dating from the 1700s and 1800s shows how the bodies of stillborn foetuses and babies were valued for research into human development, and preserved as important teaching aids.

Foetal and infant bodies were clearly valued by anatomists, illustrated by the measures taken to preserve the remains intact and undamaged

Jenna Dittmar

Dissected foetal skull dating from the 1800s, originally held in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Anatomy Museum

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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