When Bones Weld


Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, or FOP, is a rare autosomal dominant disorder first reported in 1648 in which the soft connective tissue of the body literally turns to bone, painfully freezing the body in an immobile state. Only about 2,500 people in the world have FOP. The skeleton of Harry Eastlack, a FOP sufferer, is on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.
Sheets of bone cover Harry Eastlack’s back. Ribbons, sheets, and plates of bone lock his spine to his skull and his skull to his jaw. Additional ribbons and cordons of bone span from the spine to the limbs and immobilize the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. Thin stalagmites of bone launch themselves from his pelvis and thighs. His upper arms are welded to his breastbone by slender white bridges of bone that cross his immobilized rib cage.
Another FOP skeleton, belonging to a veteran, lives at the National Museum of Health and Medicine on the Walter Reed campus in Washington. It sits in a rocking chair where it lived out the last years of its life with a hole punched in its teeth so that food could be forced through its owner’s clenched jaws.
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