Medicine: The Bones of History

For doctors who never tire of arguing about the age and origin of diseases, a Washington orthopedist rattled some old bones last week. Exhibited to the District of Columbia Medical Society was a collection of human bones culled with care from the Smithsonian Institution’s vast collection by Orthopedist William J. Tobin. Beside each bone was an X-ray diagnosis of what ailed the long-dead patient.

Most striking was Dr. Tobin’s evidence on the disputed question of whether American Indians, long before Columbus launched a transatlantic traffic in diseases, suffered from syphilis and tuberculosis. Two shinbones, found in Arkansas and Illinois, showed changes characteristic of syphilis. Dr. Tobin and Anthropologist T. Dale Stewart, who worked with him, admit the difficulty of dating these bones precisely, but they are sure that no white man had reached the area when these Indians died.

Accurately dated (by tree rings) as undoubtedly pre-Columbian is an Indian pueblo from which the Smithsonian Institution got a diseased vertebra. Dr. Tobin’s diagnosis: tuberculosis. Another revealing item (because cancer was, and still is, rare among Indians): a pre-Columbian pelvis which showed that its original owner suffered from a spreading carcinoma of the prostate.