
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994                   TAG: 9405150016
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: E-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

BONES OFFER PEEK AT PAST

A well unearthed by a construction worker near the Medical College of Virginia served as a refuse pit for cadavers, corpses and amputations in the 19th century.

Researchers say the bones provide a rare glimpse into the sometimes grisly techniques of the period's surgeons.

Nonhuman debris in the shaft included a dozen shoes, chunks of imported dinner plates, a green wine bottle with a concave bottom, a pipette and hand-blown test tubes and beakers.

"The laboratory glass underscores the relationship between the human remains and the medical school," said L. Daniel Mouer, director of the archaeology research center at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Medical evidence for surgical and dental practices is abundant."

"The remains are in exceptionally good condition, having been well-preserved by the water in the well," Mouer said. "They contain a record of health, nutrition and medical practices of the 19th century which is unique."

Another factor that preserved the bones: They apparently were toasted in a primitive crematorium so the diseases would not spread to students.

The "limb pit" apparently was used by medical students at the former Medical Department of Hampden-Sydney College, the predecessor of the Medical College of Virginia, between 1840 and 1860.

The well was discovered April 26 by a heavy-equipment driver digging 25 feet below a street during construction of the Medical Sciences Building for VCU.

Among the items recovered: a jaw with an abscess that researchers say was treated by sawing out several inches of chin.

Two skulls, one from a man and one from a woman, have smashed temples - but no exit wounds, which would have indicated gunshots. Mouer speculated the wounds might be from a broomstick, perhaps a weapon of choice for a domestic quarrel. His theory was bolstered when a third skull turned up - with a chunk of wood in it.

Others may have been killed with fireplace pokers, and some of the mangled limbs may have been run over by carriages.

The primitive, scarce nature of medical care is obvious from jaw bones in which the tooth sockets had healed over and porous joints that had been almost completely eroded by arthritis.

by CNB