Tale from the crypt: Researchers conduct “virtual autopsy” of mummified toddler
Enlarge / A CT scan of the infant mummy's head, showing deformation of the skull bones. (credit: A.G. Nerlich et al., 2022)
There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2022, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: Scientists conducted a "virtual autopsy" of a mummified toddler from the 17th century, concluding the remains are likely those of one Reichard Wilhelm (1625-1626).
A multidisciplinary team of Austrian and German scientists performed a "virtual autopsy" of the 17th-century mummified remains of an infant, remarkably preserved in an aristocratic family crypt. They found that despite the infant's noble upbringing, the child suffered from extreme nutritional deficiency, causing rickets or scurvy, and likely died after contracting pneumonia, according to an October paper published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.
This is only one case," said co-author Andreas Nerlich of the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen. But as we know that the early infant death rates generally were very high at that time, our observations may have considerable impact in the overall life reconstruction of infants even in higher social classes."