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In 1965 a young woman was found dead in a canal in Motala (by the locks at Borenshult), molested and murdered. The body was later identified as an American tourist, Roseanna McGraw, who was taking a boat trip in southern Sweden. This was the first murder mystery to be solved by Martin Beck and his team of police investigators in the ten police procedurals - collectively titled The Story of a Crime - written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

Now another mystery has emerged from what once used to be a small lake in Motala. And this is a real mystery. At Kanaljorden several human skeletons dating back from the Stone Age have been unearthed by at team of archaeologist lead by Fredrik Hallgren.

It is a complex Mesolithic site with ceremonial depositions of human crania in a small lake. The skulls have been been handled through a complex ceremony that involved the displaying of skulls on stakes, and the deposition of skulls in water. The rituals were conducted on a massive (14 x 14 m) stone-packing constructed on the bottom of a shallow lake.

Archaeologists at work at Kanaljorden, Motala

In a pressrelease from the 19th of November 2011 the finding of the spectacular heads on stakes is described:

Archaeological excavations in 2009–2011 at Kanaljorden in the town of Motala, Östergötland in central Sweden have unearthed a unique Mesolithic site with ceremonial depositions of human crania in a former lake. The human skulls have been treated in a complex ceremony that involved the display of skulls on stakes and the deposition of skulls in water. The skulls have been 14C-dated and are 8000 years old.

The rituals at Kanaljorden were conducted on a massive stone-packing constructed on the bottom of a shallow lake (nowadays a peat fen). Some human crania were found as more or less intact “skulls” while others were found as isolated fragments, for example a frontal lobe or a temporal bone. Based on the more intact skulls eleven individuals have been identified, both men and women, ranging in age between infants and middle age. Two of the skulls had wooden stakes inserted into the cranium. In both cases the stakes were inserted the full length from the base to the top of the skull. In another case a temporal bone of one individual (a woman) was found placed inside the skull of another woman. Besides human skulls the find material also includes a small number of post-cranial human bones and bones from animals, as well as artefacts of stone, wood, bone and antler.

The skull depositions at Kanaljorden are clearly ritual in character. The next step is to find out if the human bones are relics from dearly departed that were handled in a complex secondary burial ritual, or trophies of defeated enemies. The archaeologists hope that the ongoing laboratory analysis will give clues to if the bones are remains of locals or persons with a distant geographic origin, and if they represent a family group or persons unrelated to each other.

One of the skulls with a stake inserted into foramen magnum

Another skull is being unearthed at the site at Kanaljorden

It will be interesting to hear of the results of the laboratory analysis of stable isotopes and - if very lucky - aDNA: Are the remains of "dearly departed" or "trophies of defeated enemies." Another interesting question is what were the state of the skulls when they were put on the stakes? Were they recently chopped of heads or were they allready defleshed? No other finds from that period offers any comparaive material so it truely is a great mystery we are dealing with here!

Another very remarkable feature of this excavation is the weekely newsleters making it possible for anyone interested to follow the progress of the digging. The only prerequisite is the ability to read Swedish. Definitely an example for others to follow!

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is one of Rembrandt's most well-known paintings. It is also the most copied and plagiarized of all the 'Anatomy Lessons' in art history. Rembrandt painted The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp in 1632 commisioned by the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons for their Guild Room. The painting now hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is painted in the tradition of the famous group portraits which flourished in 17th-century Holland, a predominantly urban, middle-class society where the main patrons of the arts were the leading citizens of the various towns. Moreover, it is one of nine paintings made between 1603 and 1925 for the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons showing anatomy lessons and still to be found in Dutch museums (Mauritshuis and Amsterdam Historical Museum).

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

On the painting we see Dr. Tulp demonstrating the flexors of the forearm to an audience of seven surgeons from the guild (we still know the names of all of them). In the bottom right corner is a large open book normally identified as a copy of Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica from 1543.

The event depicted can be dated to 16 January 1632 or one of the following days: the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, of which Tulp was official City Anatomist, were permitted only one public dissection a year, and the body would have to be that of an executed criminal. The corpse in 1632 was that of the criminal Aris Kindt (alias of Adriaan Adriaanszoon), who was convicted for armed robbery and sentenced to death by hanging.

Such anatomy lectures would usually only be carried out in winter time when temperatures were lower as there was no electricity in those days to refrigerate corpses and sometimes this experimentation and these talks would go on for several days.

Anatomy lessons were a social event in the 17th century, taking place in what were actual theatres, with students, colleagues and the general public being permitted to attend on payment of an entrance fee. Between 1619 and 1639 the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons used the Weigh-House (De Waag or St Anthonius Poorthuis) for the dissections. This was a small anatomy theatre, also used as guild room, with furniture, art and medical instruments.

It has been pointet out several times that this painting - like many of the other Amsterdam anatomy lessons - does not depict the actual dissection taking place. Several things points to this. The scene does not seem to be a crowded anatomy theater as we se it e.g. on the cover of Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica. In all of the Amsterdam anatomy lessons there is an unrealistic absence of dissecting instruments, and on the Tulp painting we also notice the absence of the Preparator who was the person whose task was to prepare the body for the lesson. This was considered somewhat of a menial and bloody task, which the likes of Doctor Tulp would not be expected to carry out. Finaly the dissection itself is quite unusual; before preservation methods were available, the abdominal viscera, which were most perishable, would be dissected out first. Here the body remains unopened and the first attention of the surgeons is directed towards muscles and tendons.

The purpose of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is not to give an authentic picture of an anatomical dissection, but to portrait the important members (and citizens) of the Guild of Surgeons.

Different later versions of The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

(Click on images to see larger version)

Edouard Manet (ca. 1856)	Yiull Damaso (2010)
Hillary White	LEGO (2007)

Mondino de Luzzi (ca. 1270 – 1326), also known as Mundinus, was an Italian physician, anatomist, and professor of surgery who lived and worked in Bologna. He is often credited as the “restorer of anatomy” because he made seminal contributions to the field by reintroducing the practice of public dissection of human cadavers in Bologna in 1316 and writing the first modern anatomical text Anathomia corporis humani (also in 1316). The earliest edition of the work was printed in Padua in 1478, and more than 40 editions exist in total.

On the woodcut we see a prosector (barber surgeon) and a physician - probably supposed to be Mundinus - preparing an anatomical dissection. From an edition of Anathomia corporis humani from 1493. Here we clearly see - as mentioned in my previous post - the physisian sitting with his edition of Galen (I guess), while giving instructions to the prosector who looks more upon the physisian than the corpse.

Fasciculus Medicinae is a “bundle” of six independent and quite different medieval medical treatises. The collection, which existed only in two manuscripts (handwritten copies), was first printed in 1491 in Latin and came out in numerous editions over the next 25 years. Johannes de Ketham, the German physician routinely associated with the Fasciculus, was neither the author nor even the original compiler but merely an owner of one of the manuscripts. The book is remarkable as the first illustrated medical work to appear in print; notable illustrations include: a urine chart, a diagram of the veins for phlebotomy, a pregnant woman, Wound Man, Disease Man and Zodiac Man. (From Wikipedia)

You can see all of the ten illustrations from Fasciculus Medicinae here.

On the woodcut we notice a clear distinctinct separation between the anatomist and the barber surgeon and his assistents. The anatomist is on the pulpit and has no physical contact with the corpse. He is more of a philologist - an expert on the writing of Hippocrates and Galen. He instructs the barber surgeon what to do and explains his findings according to the ‘holy’ of Galen.

I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.

- Andreas Vesalius Epistola rationem modumque propinandi radicis Chynae decocti (Letter on the China Root), translated by Charles Donald O’Malley. In Charles Donald O’Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514-1564 (2nd Ed., 1964), 201.

As opposed to his predecessors knowledge according to Vesalius is based on observation - not on reading the works of Hippocrates and Galen.

A motive in art that keeps fascinating me is the Anatomy Lesson. Over the next period of time I will show some examples here on my blog. The first is the cover of Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica from 1543. Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy and he surely made a very important contribution with this book showing several of the Galenic ideas of human anatomy to be false.

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Mine børn spørger tit, hvad det egentlig er jeg laver på mit arbejde. Det er ikke så let at svare på, dels fordi der ikke er to dage, som ligner hinanden og dels fordi det let kommer til at lyde mere kedeligt i deres ører, end det i virkeligheden er.

Tag blot nedenstående video, som viser kulminationen på en ganske spændende dag, hvor vi arbejdede ihærdigt på at få middlewaren (AMS) på vores Abbott-udstyr til at snakke sammen med vores kommende LIMS, BCC fra Logica. Det var en lang kamp, hvor vi lidt efter lidt fik løst det ene problem efter det andet, og lige så langsomt fik mere og mere hul igennem. Mange mails og telefonsamtaler skulle der til med henholdsvis Helge fra Logica og Mattia fra Omnilab i Italien; leverandøren af AMS-systemet.

Vi kunne efterhånden se de bestillinger vi sendte af sted fra BCC i AMS, men det var endnu ikke muligt, at sætte et prøverør på analyseudstyret og få det til at aflæse stregkoden, for at se hvilke analyser, der skulle udføres på det pågældende rør. Igen og igen blev prøverøret smidt ud i instrumentets 'fejlbakke' med ukendte prøverør. Søren Nielsen (som Regionen har ansat til at hjælpe med instrumentopkoblingerne) og Mattia sad længe og lirkede med hvorledes AMS tolkede ASTM-protokollen: Hvilke felter var obligatoriske for at AMS kunne tolke tekststrengen og hvilke kunne undlades?

På videoen ses, endnu et forsøg, hvor patientnavnet er føjet til.... og vupti, det var åbenbart det der manglede, for nu fortsætter prøverøret ud på tracket! Det er Søren, som sidder ved computeren og snakker i telefon og Karen, som sætter prøverøret på analyseudstyret:

Dagens højdepunkt - intet mindre! Men hvordan får man det til at lyde som noget stort i ørerne på børn mellem 12 og 15?

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Medicinsk Museion blev hårdt ramt af weekendens skybrud, da et magasin, som bl.a. indeholdt skeletter fra Vilh. Møller-Christensens udgravninger af Æbelholt Kloster samt diverse pestkirkegårde, blev oversvømmet. Som det hedder i Politiken er spørgsmålet, "hvad der kan gøres med skeletdelene, der nu er bløde og risikerer at flække eller gå til." og der konstateres, at "Ingen har stået over for opgaver af den kaliber før." Lad os krydse fingre for, at det lykkes for dem at redde denne værdifulde samling af skeletter.

Nedenstående gribende video er blevet uploadet på Medicinsk Museions YouTube-kanal:

Læs mere her:

• After the storm, salvaging the collections at Medical Museion (Lucy på Biomedicine on Display, 05-07-2011)
• Efter skybruddet: Redningsaktionen fortsætter (Astrid Mo på Museionblog, 05-07-2011)
• Vandskader truer enestående skeletsamling (Politiken, 4. jul. 2011)

Since I work at a clinical laoratory I find the following articles on the history of blood analysis for a diagnostic purpose and on the history of the clinical laboratory quite interesting.

First there are these four articles by Darlene Berger: A brief history of medical diagnosis and the birth of the clinical laboratory, Part 1-4. MLO, 1999 (www.mlo-online.com):

• Part 1: Ancient times through the 19th century
• Part 2: Laboratory science and professional certification in the 20th century
• Part 3: Medicare, government regulation and competency certification
• Part 4: Fraud and abuse, managed care and lab consolidation

Henrik Dam working in his lab (1974)

These four articles may be supplemented with the following:

• Robert E. Moore: An Historical Perspective on the Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory. From: W.B. Coleman and G.J. Tsongalis: Molecular Diagnostics: For the Clinical Laboratorian. Humana Press, 2nd ed., 2006
• John Bolodeoku, Adebayo Olukoga and David Donaldson: Historical perspectives on health Origins of blood analysis in clinical diagnosis. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. Vol. 118, No. 4, 1998: 231-236.
• John M.S. Bartlett and David Stirling: A Short History of the Polymerase Chain Reaction. From: Methods in Molecular Biology, Vol. 226: PCR Protocols

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What seems to be a very fascinating documentary titled "The Elephant: Life After Death" will be aired tomorrow on Wednesday 16 February in UK on Channel 4. Damn! Why isn't Channel 4 one of the 107 channels on my TV?:

There are an estimated 6 million calories in an elephant - enough energy to keep a human sated for over eight years. But at the Tsavo West National Park in Kenya, it took wild animals just seven days to reduce a dead elephant to nothing more than a pile of bones (see video above).

The remarkable footage was generated as part of a Channel 4 documentary investigating what happens when an elephant dies in its natural environment.

The research team behind the programme were interested in the animals that feed off the remains. They captured video of vultures, hyenas, leopards and insects working away at the carcass day and night. The footage also revealed unexpected and worrying imbalances in the food chain - notably that the number of vultures in Kenya is declining.

The film crew got the opportunity to film the decomposing elephant when a young adult male was put down by a vet after ivory poachers left it mortally wounded. To simulate a kill and attract scavengers to the carcass, they projected sounds of lions attacking an elephant. Then they filmed the events from a camouflaged observation centre.

Source: New Scientist TV

You can find some articles on taphonomy here including Ivan Efremov's: Taphonomy: new branch of paleontology from 1940.