The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser].

  • Wilfrid Bonser
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2. W. L. H. Duckworth wrote in 1906 of the skeletons found in the early Anglo-Saxon burial-ground at Mitcham, Surrey, that ‘the remains belong to persons of tall stature and powerful physique, ranging in stature from 1,668 to 1,736 mm. [4 ft. 10J in. to 6 ft.] for the males’. In another place he mentioned one—no. 15 in the third series—whose stature he estimated to have been 1,827 mm., ‘by far the greatest’. The following cephalic indices are given: 77-5, 80, ? 86, 72, ?76’9, 73-8, 78, ? 86. He also noted that the left radius, in two cases, had been fractured and had been naturally repaired. 1 3. A. F. Griffith and L. F. Salzmann described in 1914 the excavation of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Alfriston, Sussex. They gave an interesting pathological detail in connexion with the skeleton of a woman in grave 43: ‘The left femur was anchylosed with the pelvis; the pelvis and femur are preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Dr. Keith reports that this anchylosis was caused by tuberculous disease of the hip- joint in youth; the joint became flexed and fixed in a most in convenient position.’ 1 2 (ii) Wessex 4. A. J. E. Cave, writing in 1935, gave the cephalic indices of two skulls from a pagan burial at Woodbridge, North Newnton, Wiltshire, as 72 or 73 and c. 77. 3 5. J. B. Davis gave in i860 the following details of crania found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Long Wittenham, Berkshire: No. 61 is the cranium of a man of advanced age, probably not less than 70 years. . . . The calvarium is well filled out, capacious, equable and of the platycephalic form; the forehead squarish, ample and upright, and the nasal bones appear to have proceeded from it at a small angle. The face is of good size, the horizontal arch of the jaws well rounded, and the chin upright and expressed. The whole features give the idea of an agreeable, if not handsome countenance. The skull appertains to what we regard as the typical series of Anglo-Saxon crania, and has probably belonged to a tall, well-proportioned man. ... Of the three 1 Duckworth, ‘Notes on a collection of crania and bones from Mitcham’, Archaeologia, 1906, lx. 60-68. 3 Griffith and Salzmann, ‘An Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Alfriston, Sussex’, Sussex Archaeol. Collections , 1914, lvi. 39. 3 Cave, ‘Pagan Saxon burial at Woodbridge, North Newnton, Wilts.’, Wilts. Archaeol. Mag., 193s, xlvii. 265-7.