BoneDiseased

The frontal bone of a likely 6 to 12 years old child with an incomplete trephination from 18th to 19th century Aberdeen. The donut shape is distinctive to a trephine, a metal tool for drilling through skulls. Always raises the question, why did they stop?

Lets go obscure: two broken legs from a poor bastard who was in the British Navy in the 17 or 1800s. The arrow points to a drainage hole from bone infection but had healed so they survived this. They were recovered from Greenwich Hospital which was a home for retired sailors.

Source: Boston (2014) The Value of Osteology in Historical Context: a comparison of osteological and historical evidence for trauma in the late 18th - early 19th century British Royal Navy.

Humerus of a medieval male aged probably 30 to 40 with multiple osteochondromas from Ballyhanna, Ireland