Det sjuka benet och de friska människorna : en studie av osteoporos och osteoartrit i kvarteret Banken 1 i Visby

Sammanfattning: This essay deals with the diseases osteoporosis and osteoarthritis in a medieval population from Visby in Sweden. The aim has been to evaluate to what extent and in what way these diseases have influenced the people of a relatively large harbour town during the Middle Ages. 24 individuals were analysed osteologicaly and 19 of them became subject for measurements of bone density through DEXA readings. Furthermore four individuals were x-rayed based on external differences due to osteoarthritis and a change in the depression at the base of the medial surface of the greater trochanter. Similar studies have been made in Trondheim, Norway and Wharram Percy, Great Britain. These were exceedingly larger than the study made for this essay and showed a higher number of individuals with the above mentioned diseases, compared to only one individual with osteopenia, a precursor of osteoporosis, and two individuals with osteoarthritis in the population from Visby. Additionally reasons for a population to be effected by the diseases has been evaluated and discussed. Climate and geology have been suggested as having an impact on the frequency of osteoporosis in a population as well as heredity.  For osteoarthritis a theoretical connection has been made to the changes in the trochanteric fossa.