Unusual foreign metallic object (nail) in the dentition of a skull from the anthropological collection of Rudolf Virchow (Berlin).

Foreign bodies in the dentition of present day patients are frequently diagnosed. They are more rare in mediaeval and anthropological specimens. Rudolf Virchow, the doyen of pathology in Germany formed a huge collection of anthropological specimens in the 19th century. Among these specimens one skull from Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia) found its way into the collection of Virchow in 1881. The skull is that of a prisoner of war who died in 1877 due to dysentery. The skull is remarkable in that a metallic nail was adapted around the second right maxillary molar. Both radiological and clinical findings indicate that the nail was adapted to the tooth while the individual was still alive. In particular, erosion of the cortical bone plate in the affected area and osseous healing between the first and second maxillary molar may be taken as proof of adaptation of the nail in vivo. The reasons why the nail was applied, however, are difficult to explain. The authors assume that the nail was applied not by the individual himself. Probably, the nail was adapted as an amulet to protect the individual from injury or death.

[Architecture of the human skullcap in the region of the pars bregmatica suturae sagittalis. I. Age dependence]. / Zur Architektur des menschlichen Schädeldaches im Bereich der Pars Bregmatica suturae sagittalis. Teil I: Altersabhängigkeit.

For scientific investigations of human skeletal remains--e.g. material from cremations--there are often only rather small bone fragments available. The analysis of their inner structure presents itself as one of the few possibilities of finding evidence to characterize the former individual. The article presented here demonstrates structure findings (calvarial thickness; relation between tabula externa, tabula interna, and diploe [in terms of the percentage of the whole section examined], porosity of the diploe [including the mean width of its cavities]; degree of obliteration of the sagittal suture) of a strictly defined skeletal segment in special regard to the expected variability. With the help of the results, change tendencies--not "age changes"--of the investigated components will be discussed.

[Architecture of the human skull cap in the region of the pars bregmatica suturae sagittalis. II. Sex characteristics]. / Zur Architektur des menschlichen Schädeldaches im Bereich der Pars bregmatica suturae sagittalis. Teil II: Geschlechtseigentümlichkeiten.

There has previously been no treatise on the inner architecture of the human cranial vault other than those dealing with common "age changes". Such a treatise ought to refer to a particular segment of the vault demonstrate the peculiar structure according to age in both sexes, and also take into consideration their normal variability as presupposition for using the results in estimating the age of prehistoric skeletal material. With the help of thin sections across the sagittal suture and the adjoining cranial vault 10 mm behind the bregma findings about the specific structure as to age and sex and their expected variability are demonstrated by more than 200 cases taken from the recent population. According to the results in hand there exists a contradiction to the opinions hitherto existing about a distinct age dependence in the bone structure and distinct sex differences in the findings of the structures of the Ist order. Though data about changes in the anatomical construction of the human cranial vault during the ontogenesis are to be correctly obtained only with the help of longitudinal investigation, the crosssectional investigation produced only differences between the age classes. Real differences were not to be found, but there are to be derived possible tendencies of development for the calvarial thickness, for the relation between the compact bone (tabula externa, tabula interna) and the porous bone (diploë), of the porosity in the diploë and the obliteration of the suture in the course of increasing age. No significant sex differences were found but there are sex peculiarities or at least inclinations to it. The use of the findings taken from the cross-sectional aspect of the cranial vault in order to estimate the age at death and the sex as well as indications of possible individual peculiarities, at present ead to a sufficiently reliable diagnosis only within a polysymptomatical practice.