The beauty and heartbreak of bones Part 2

  Several people have expressed interest in seeing some pictures from this book I've been going on about, so I've selected a few of the more dramatic illustrations. Some of these are really upsetting, at least to me. Even though they're only bones, they're someone's bones, and this someone probably had a pretty miserable time in life. You can click on each photo to read the caption and see better details. So here we go:

I can't seem to insert text in between the pictures for some reason, so I'll give some more detail on each one down here. The captions give most of the information, but I can add a little more:

Pic 1: Paget's disease is an interesting one. Apparently no one knows what the exact cause but the prevailant theory is that it may be caused by some sort of viral infection and certain racial groups seem more genetically vulnerable to it than others. It is very rare in African or Asians, and occurs mostly in those of European descent who are over the age of 40. The condition basically results in a marked increase of bone growth, similar to what happens with an injury or infection. Bones become thickened and deformed both on the exterior and the interior. This femur is from a 64-year-old man, date and location unknown.

Pic 4: The skull of an adult female from 17th century Norway.  This shows the damage caused by carcinoma that has metastasized from somewhere else in the body. No way to know how long she had cancer.

Pic 5: An 8-year-old girl with both severee scoliosis and spina bifida. I have to assume that though the spinal canal did not fuse, the cord must have been covered by some significant amount of tissue for her to survive so long. No info on cause of death or where or when she lived.

Pic 6: This is condition that results from bone cells not maturing properly. It usually begins sometime in childhood and stops when bone growth stops. The affected bones develop fibrous lesions and are far more prone to deformation and fracture, but do not necessarily affect a person's survival. This woman survived to age 40 so she had some degree of care.