Researchers from Historic England and McMaster University in Canada examined 2,787 skeletons from 18 cemeteries across the Roman empire and discovered that rickets was a widespread phenomenon 2,000 years ago.
Rickets is caused by vitamin D deficiency, often because of a lack of exposure to sunshine. It was a particular problem in the crowded, polluted towns and cities of 19th-century Britain and is often assumed to be a Victorian disease. [...]
“The big surprise to me was how young most of the sufferers were,” said Mays. “Some were suffering even in the first few months of life. The inescapable conclusion was that people were keeping their infants indoors too much.”
Quite why mothers might have been staying inside with their children is open for debate. “One tends to assume most women would have gone out and worked in agriculture: this throws open the possibility that that did not happen.”
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