The bones of the trunk and extremities. 



The skeleton contained in the coffin is evidently that of a person 

 of normal proportions but of relatively small bodily size. The rather 

 well developed muscular ridges on the bones give to them a deci- 

 dedly masculine type. 



No noteworthy divergences from the normal conditions of form 

 were observed except on the sacrum, which consisted of six vertebrcB 

 and showed a sacral canal which was open backwards for the entire 

 extension of the bone (spina bifida), and on which a part of the arch 

 of the uppermost vertebra is not fused with the rest of the vertebra. 

 Both anomalies first mentioned are by no means rare. The occurrence 

 of six sacral vertebra? has been observed by different authors at a fre- 

 quency of from 12 % (Radlauer 22) to 35.5 '^/0 (Paterson ai), and an 

 open sacral canal, which is the normal condition with children up to 

 about the 5th year of life, is an arrest in development which seems to oc- 

 cur in adults in about one case in 20. On the contrary, the absence 

 of a connection between the arch and the body of the first ^'ertebra, or 

 perhaps more correctly, between the two centres of ossification in the half 

 of the arch in question, is comparatively scarce. No symptoms during life 

 need have been caused by these anomalies, and the same is probably 

 true of some little exostoses, found on the fourth sacral vertebra, and 

 situated towards the sacral canal. 



The bones had a very porous structure and relatively slight weight, 

 which appear to be explainable as senile changes, quite natural, if one 

 considers Swedenborct's advanced age (84 years). A number of small 

 osteophytes on the vertebrae and on the articular ends of some of 

 the bones of the extremities may also be classed as senile changes, 

 or possibly as the consequences of chronic rheumatism (arthritis). For 

 the rest, no traces of pathological changes were observed. Neither 



Nova Acta Keg. Soo. Sc. Ups. Ser. 4. Vol. 2. N. 9. Irapr. ^u 1910. 6 



