London – Camden – British Museum (Tuberculosis in the Spine)

I’m not a medical expert, but I can write with some confidence that this isn’t ideal. It’s the spine of a female, aged between 20 and 34, who was suffering from tuberculosis of the spine, with the damage being so severe that the vertebrae have fused together and collapsed. The museum notes that this would have “significantly affected her mobility”, which is no doubt true, but I can’t imagine how painful this must have been as well. The body was found in Sudan, but the aging is quite wide, the lady could have lived during any period between the fourth and fifteenth centuries.