Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
They were the Jimmy Choos of their day.
Known as poulaines, pointy leather shoes were the height of fashion in 14th century Britain. Medieval men and women about town, however, suffered for their fancy footwear: They got bunions.
The painful condition is common today, especially among women. Paleopathologist Jenna Dittmar was surprised to find evidence of bunions, more formally known as Hallux valgus, among the skeletal remains she was investigating for a wider project on life experience in the medieval period.
"You get degenerative changes in the bones of the feet. There's very clear osteological signs that the toes were pushed laterally. And there's basically holes in the bone suggesting that the ligaments were pulling away. It looks painful to look at the bone," said Dittmar, a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen, who was at the University of Cambridge while she conducted the research.
A bunion forms when the big toe becomes angled and a bony protrusion forms on the inside of the foot. The deformity is often associated with high heels and constrictive footwear, although other factors like genetics play a role. The bump can be painful and make it harder to balance.
Intrigued by the unexpected prevalence of bunions, Dittmar and her colleagues analyzed a total of 177 skeletons from the 11th to the 15th centuries buried in and around Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The research team found that 27% of the skeletons dating from the 14th and 15th centuries suffered from bunions, compared with only 6% that dated back between the 11th and 13th centuries.
The 1300s saw the arrival of new styles of dress and footwear in a wider range of fabrics and colors, the researchers said, and the remains of shoes excavated in London and Cambridge by the late 14th century suggest that almost every type of shoe -- for adults and children -- was at least slightly pointed.
Few of the shoes have survived intact, although the Museum of London has one well preserved example on display in the Medieval London gallery, which is 31.5 centimetres long.
It was unclear whether the shoes had heels, Dittmar said. Materials like wood that the heels could have been made from do not preserve well in the archaeological record.
Wealthier, higher-status individuals living in urban areas were more likely to have suffered from bunions, the study of the skeletons, which came from four different cemeteries around Cambridge, suggested.
Only 3% of the skeletons in the rural cemetery 3.7 miles (6 kilometres) south of the city and 10% of the parish graveyard in the outskirts of the town, where many working poor were buried, showed signs of bunions.
In comparison, evidence of bunions was found on 23% of those buried on the site of a charitable hospital that is now part of St. John's College and 43% of those interred in the grounds of a former Augustinian friary -- mainly clergy and wealthy benefactors.
While friars were supposed to wear clothes that reflected a simple lifestyle of worship, it was common for clergy to wear stylish attire. Fly clergy were such a concern to church officials that they were forbidden from wearing pointed-toe shoes in 1215. That said, the decree appeared to have little effect, with further edicts on clerical dress passed in 1281 and 1342, the study noted.
More male skeletons in the study had bunions than female ones, but Dittmar said that the study sample had fewer female skeletons and the team couldn't conclude that there was a gender divide.
The study also found the skeletons of those who died over the age 45 with Hallux valgus were also more likely to show signs of fractures that usually result from a fall. For example, fractures to upper limbs could indicate an individual tumbled forward onto outstretched arms.
"Modern clinical research on patients with Hallux valgus has shown that the deformity makes it harder to balance, and increases the risk of falls in older people," Dittmar said. "This would explain the higher number of healed broken bones we found in medieval skeletons with this condition."
The study was published in the International Journal of Paleopathology.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.