Injury, Int. J. Care Injured 45 (2014) 460–464

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Do we really need new medical information about the Turin Shroud? M. Bevilacqua a, G. Fanti b,*, M. D’Arienzo c, R. De Caro d a

Hospital-University of Padua, Italy Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padua, Italy c Orthopaedic Clinic, University of Palermo, Italy d Institute of Anatomy, University of Padua, Italy b

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Accepted 17 September 2013

Image processing of the Turin Shroud (TS) shows that the Man represented in it has undergone an under glenoidal dislocation of the humerus on the right side and lowering of the shoulder, and has a flattened hand and enophthalmos; conditions that have not been described before, despite several studies on the subject. These injuries indicate that the Man suffered a violent blunt trauma to the neck, chest and shoulder from behind, causing neuromuscular damage and lesions of the entire brachial plexus. The posture of the left claw-hand is indicative of an injury of the lower brachial plexus, as is the crossing of the hands on the pubis, not above the pubis as it would normally be, and are related to traction of the limbs as a result of the nailing to the patibulum. The disappearance of the thumbprints is because of entrainment of the flexor pollicis longus tendons while the nails were driven through the wrists. The blunt chest trauma, which resulted in the body falling forwards, was the direct cause of a lung contusion and haemothorax, confirmed by the post-mortem leakage of clots and serum from the chest caused by the stabbing with the spear, and was a likely cause of cardiac contusion. All the evidence is in favour of the hypothesis that the TS Man is Jesus of Nazareth. ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Turin Shroud Trauma to the shoulder, neck and chest Humerus dislocation Enophthalmos Hemothorax

The TS1 is a linen cloth, 4.4 m long and 1.1 m wide, which enveloped a dead body with evident rigour mortis2,3 of a scourged, thorn-crowned man who was crucified and stabbed in the side with a spear. The TS is the most important Relic of Christianity and has generated more controversy than any other relic.4 For example, the veracity of the TS has been strongly challenged by multicentre radiocarbon research (USA, UK, Switzerland), which attributed the manufacture to the late Middle Ages, dating between 1260 and 1390 AD.5 The results of radiocarbon research relevant to that time frame, however, are now considered invalid, having been affected by systematic errors.6 The characteristics of the image are unique and at present they cannot be reproduced all together even though the most reliable and probable hypothesis of the formation of the image is based on the ‘‘Corona Discharge’’.4

Edwards et al.7 have historically and medically reconstructed in an accurate way the Passion of Jesus of Nazareth with clear evidence on the TS; however, many aspects remain unclear. For example, they do not explain thoroughly the posture of the hands or the point of penetration of the nails in the hands. They also do not completely explain the immediate cause of death of the TS Man because the diagnosis of asphyxia and/or severe cardiovascular collapse is inconsistent with the Gospel, which states that Jesus had the strength to cry out immediately before his death. Therefore, circulatory shock and respiratory failure would not be so severe as to be fatal at that time and should only be considered as accelerating factors in the course of the Passion. We undertook a cross-disciplinary study involving medical and engineering research of certain aspects of the TS that have so far been neglected, or only superficially explored. We could detect additional pathophysiological factors of the Passion of Jesus, bringing new clues about the authenticity of the TS and the veracity of the same Christian Tradition. In particular we have studied:

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 049 827 6804. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (M. Bevilacqua), [email protected] (G. Fanti), [email protected] (M. D’Arienzo), [email protected] (R. De Caro).

 the absence of the thumbs;  the crossing of the hands on the pubis;  the position of the right hand that touches the outer edge of the left thigh;

Some information from the Turin Shroud

0020–1383/$ – see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.injury.2013.09.013

M. Bevilacqua et al. / Injury, Int. J. Care Injured 45 (2014) 460–464

 the right shoulder lowering;  the right eye retraction;  the posture of the right hand II, III, IV, V fingers: the extended fingers;  the posture of the left hand II, III, IV, V fingers: the flexed last phalanges;  the significance of the large stain of blood clots and serum from the right chest stabbed by the spear.

Findings and deductions

461

The position of the right hand is not normal for the following reasons: - it is inconsistent with a hyperextended, rigid body and hyperexpanded chest, as occurs in a crucified subject and as is observed in the TS; - it is inconsistent with a healthy, long-limbed leptosome man with long arms (but this is not the case of the Man of TS, with a normal structure, robust, about 175  2 cm tall10 and then normal in weight) because the left wrist, that is identified from the nail hole, is located as usual in the middle third of the groin but not on the pubis like in the slender-limbed subject.

The retracted thumbs The nailing occurred through the wrist.7–9 Various authors have suggested that iron nails were driven between the radius and the carpals or between the two rows of carpal bones, either proximally to, or through, the strong band-like flexor retinaculum and the various intercarpal ligaments.7 Superimposition of a semi-transparent TS-like cloth with a 3-D model of the Man indicates that the driving of the nail by the crucifiers occurred in a very accessible point, precisely between the prominences of the tendons for the flexor carpi radialis and palmaris longus muscles at the level of the middle skin fold of the wrist, near the scaphoid tubercle. Therefore, the nails pierced the space between the radial, scaphoid and lunate bones and between and under the tendons for the flexor carpi radialis and palmaris longus muscles, then passed the median nerve and the flexor pollicis longus tendon. The lack of thumbprints of both hands on the TS is related not only to a lesion of the median nerve that causes only a slight flexion of the thumb, but also, particularly, to the fact that the nail driven into the wrist has pulled or injured the flexor pollicis longus tendon causing its dragging in the hole and the complete retraction of the thumb. We have tested and documented this phenomenon radiologically using an amputated limb and an iron nail 10 cm long with a square base 1 cm across. The crossing of the hands on the pubis The TS clearly shows that the fingers of the right hand almost reach the outer edge of the left thigh. The left hand crosses the right hand at the pubis level, covering it.

We must conclude, therefore, that the arms had been almost disarticulated during the nailing and even more during the suspension on the cross, and so remained in this position after their arrangement and winding in the TS. The right hand touches the outer edge of the left thigh Anthropometrical measurements have been made on the frontal and dorsal body image of the TS11,12 to verify the compatibility of the frontal and dorsal images with a human body.13 Starting from these works, the authors studied the position of arms and shoulders and, in addition, having as a landmark the hole located on the radius end, then measured the various segments: radio-carpal/metacarpus-phalangeal, radio-carpus/elbow (assuming the intersection of the radial segment with the segment humeral), shoulder end/neck root. The following information was taken into consideration during the analysis: 1. A symmetric inclination of the shoulders on the dorsal image of the TS. 2. Position of arms and hands on the TS frontal image that are not easy to obtain in a normal human body without using ties because the raised arms tend to fall laterally. This posture is instead easier if the arms are dislocated. 3. Lengths of radius and humerus, right and left independently obtained11,12 from studies of photographs of the TS. 4. Standard anthropometric Radius-Humeral Index, equal to 0.75. The results of this study, based on kinematic analysis of the pivotal points A–H, depicted in Fig. 1 are reported in Table 1 and demonstrate that the right humerus was subjected to an underglenoidal dislocation. The space between humerus and right shoulder is 3.5  1.0 cm, and this is a sign of humerus dislocation.

Fig. 1. On the left: position of shoulder and arms on the frontal and dorsal body image of the TS with positions of the pivotal points measured in Table 1. On the right: radiography of an underglenoidal dislocation.

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The fact that the TS Man has an underglenoidal dislocation proves that he suffered a trauma. The underglenoidal dislocation can be produced through direct or indirect trauma. Direct trauma is caused by a crash on the shoulder from back to front and from the outside inward. Indirect trauma may cause dislocation, e.g. in a fall to the side with an elevated and slightly moved back arm. It is likely that both mechanisms produced the dislocation to the TS Man: clearly, it was caused by a violent knock of a heavy object, probably the patibulum or cross from behind against the shoulder, while falling to the ground. The result is severe pain and functional impairment (capsular pain; adduct, internally rotated, hanging down arm). Right shoulder lowering

In our opinion, the violent blow on the shoulder and on the lower segment of the neck caused injury to the entire brachial plexus: a. the excessive traction of the lower brachial plexus resulted in homolateral Claude Bernard–Horner Syndrome due to cessation of the T1 preganglionic pulse to the superior cervical ganglion, which resulted in miosis, enophthalmos and ptosis; b. the entire brachial plexus injury resulted in entire arm paralysis, causing the arm to hang uselessly at the side; the sensory loss was complete below a line extending from the shoulder diagonally downward and medially to the middle third of the upper arm, the right hand was flat and the fingers were stretched.

The right shoulder is lower than the left by 10  5 degrees (Table 1). This lowering is not positional as there would be relaxation of the shoulder after removal of the body from the cross, and recomposition of the limbs before winding in the TS. A positional lowering also conflicts with the state of contraction of the whole body musculature seen on the TS, and would not be compatible with the spasmodic contraction of the chest and upper limbs: muscles more strongly involved in the ventilatory failure of the crucified Man. Therefore, this posture seems to be the result of neck and shoulder muscle paralysis caused by a heavy object hitting the back between the neck and shoulder and causing displacement of the head from the side opposite to the shoulder depression. In this case, the nerves of the upper brachial plexus (particularly branches C5 and C6) are violently stretched resulting in an Erb-Duchenne paralysis (as occurs in dystocia) because of loss of motor innervation to the deltoid, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, biceps, supinator, brachioradialis and rhomboid muscles. In the case of the TS Man, the lesion was not limited to the upper brachial plexus but involved the entire brachial plexus as indicated by the presence of enophthalmos of the right eye.

The left hand shows a different posture from the right hand because the proximal interphalangeal joints of fingers II, III and IV are slightly flexed and the last phalanges are almost invisible for flexion while all four fingers of the right hand are stretched (Fig. 3). This posture is incomprehensible if the two arms had been subjected to the same trauma and the same nerve damage, as paralysis of the median nerve to the wrist prevents finger flexion. This mode of finger flexion is typical of a claw hand, expression of a paralysis of the lower left brachial plexus, in particular branches C8 and T1 ‘‘Klumpke-Dejerine type’’, as in the dystocia. In the case of TS Man, the posture of the left hand is probably related to the traction that the left superior limb suffered in order to be nailed to the patibulum.

The right enophthalmos and the rightflat hand

Clots and serum under the side wound

The TS indicates two injuries to the Man that may be related to one another:

The chest wound is located between the fifth and sixth ribs with a large spot of blood below. This post-mortem blood is different from other spots on the TS. The direction of the leakage is almost vertical, under the wound, which indicates that the blood leaked out while the body was on the cross. This is consistent with Jewish custom because post-mortem blood was not washed from the corpse. The drain of blood and serum from the chest may have been caused by heart rupture (haemopericardium) by the spear, but this is improbable. The extravasation of blood into the pericardial sac (which can cause cardiac tamponade) because of haemopericardium is

1. The right eye is retracted in the orbit with the palpebral fissure probably closed, whereas the left eye seems slightly open, as indicated by infrared investigations11 (Fig. 2). The right eye retraction in the orbit is evident because a darker area in the image corresponds to a greater distance of the anatomic detail from the TS wrapping. From the left image, the palpebral fissure appears closed. 2. All fingers of the right hand (Fig. 3), but not the thumb, are stretched.

In summary, the right shoulder lowering, flattened hand and right enophthalmos observed in the TS Man are likely to be caused by paralysis of the entire brachial plexus related to the trauma. The flexed phalanges of the left hand

Table 1 Shoulders and arms lengths and angles measured in the TS. Segment

Name

Length [cm]

Obliqueness over the horizontal [8]

AB BC CD EF FG’ GH GG’ AB-GH angle

Left shoulder Left humerus Left radius Right radius Right humerus Right shoulder Dislocation Dislocation

15  1 34  2 31b  1 32.5a,b  1 34  2 15  1 3.5  1 –

25  4 85  4 49  2 46  2 88  4 35  3 88  4 10  5

a b

The right radius is 1.5 cm longer than the left due to the cloth wrapping that causes a distortion of the image. The radio-humeral index of about 75% is not respected for the radius distortion due to TS winding.

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Fig. 2. Left: TS face showing bloodstains, broken nose and swelling on right cheekbone. Right: eyes detail of Ref. 14: the eyes region of the TS in infrared (8–14 micrometers band) indicates right eye retraction; the left eye seems slightly open.

relatively small, and does not explain the copious amounts of blood and serum leaking from the side. In fact, cardiac tamponade because of haemopericardium is rapidly fatal for relatively small volumes of blood in the pericardial sac, around 200–300 ml,15 but also flows out in smaller quantities (60–100 ml).16 This is because the parietal pericardium is fibrous and stiff, therefore a small volume of fluid compresses the heart and prevents diastolic filling, so the heart movements rapidly stop. Blood loss, dehydration and insult to the coronary arteries17,18 accelerate cardiac tamponade. In case of a fast bleeding in the pericardium, coagulation prevails rather than defibrination19 and cardiac tamponade leads to death before the deposition of fibrin on the pericardial walls. In addition, if the TS Man died of haemopericardium without a previous haemothorax, the spear would have determined the passage of all the blood from the pericardium into the pleural space. In this case, as the diaphragm can accommodate larger quantities of blood than those contained in the pericardial sac, blood would not have poured out of the chest through the wound showing the leakage of clots and serum (Fig. 4).

doubt that they come from the chest. Blood and serum may drain, inter alia, from a haemothorax as a complication of rib fractures that cause parenchymal and/or intercostal vessel laceration.21 This hypothesis,22 however, is not compatible with the Gospel (John 19,36: ‘‘A bone of him shall not be broken’’).23 Alternatively, blood and serum draining may have been caused by blunt injury to the chest and bleeding of pulmonary parenchymal vessels at low pressure by pulmonary contusion. The blood filling the pleural space coagulates, but the clots normally undergo defibrination and rupture with deposit of fibrin on the pleura, so, unless the bleeding is massive,21 the blood remains fluid presumably following physical agitation produced by cardiac and respiratory movements,24,25 especially in violent deaths,26,27 through action of fibrinolysins normally produced by the mesothelial tissue.28 In fact, the process of defibrination and separation of corpuscular part from serum occurs rapidly, within a few hours.29 It is consistent with the hypothesis that the haemothorax

Haemothorax There is evidence on the TS of blood spots separated by patches of serum20 under the wound on the side (Fig. 4), and there is no

Fig. 3. Hands on the TS.

Fig. 4. TS chest wound.

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began along the way to the Calvary or, less likely, during the scourging. The stratification of the haemothoracic liquid, with clots and compact red blood cells in sediment and with serous component upward, only happens after death, never in vivo, because the movements of heart and lungs prevent it. The haemothorax by pulmonary contusion may be due to one or more of the following causes: scourging; one or more falls to the ground; or a big stone during the carriage of the cross that hit the back and right shoulder. Conclusion The conclusions from study of the hands posture of the TS Man are as follows. The lack of thumbprints of both hands on the TS is related to the fact that the nail fixing into the wrist has injured the flexor pollicis longus tendon dragging it on the perforation route and causing its complete retraction. An underglenoidal right humerus dislocation of about 3 cm causes the right hand to touch the outer edge of the left thigh. The dislocation of the right shoulder shows a trauma suffered during the carrying of the cross to Calvary, in agreement with other evidence already known like excoriations and contusions at the knees, broken nose, presence of soil9,30 at the soles of the feet, left knee and nose tip. A violent blunt trauma involving the root of the neck and back caused an injury to the entire brachial plexus, which explains the lowering of the right shoulder, the enophthalmos and the right hand flat posture with stretched fingers II, III, IV and V. The left hand posture, like a claw hand, is an expression of a paralysis of the lower left brachial plexus, in particular branches C8 and T1, probably related to the traction that the left upper limb has suffered in order to be nailed to the patibulum; the disappearance of the thumbs is linked to the trauma by nailing. The crossing hands on the pubis, not above the pubis as it would normally be, is inconsistent with the crucified Man of the TS and indicates that he has been subjected to excessive traction of the upper limbs up to the disarticulation during the nailing and the suspension on the cross. The clots and stains serum below the side wound is an expression of haemothorax and shows that TS Man was dead before his side was pierced. The fall and/or the flagellation have caused a pulmonary contusion with haemothorax and possibly a cardiac contusion and then myocardial infarction and heart rupture31 [From the Psalm 22:14, ‘‘My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me’’ and from the Psalm 69:20 ‘‘Scorn has broken my heart’’].23 From correspondences here and elsewhere detected between TS Man and the description of Jesus’s Passion in the Gospels and Christian Tradition, the authors provide further evidence in favour of the hypothesis that TS Man is Jesus of Nazareth.

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Do we really need new medical information about the Turin Shroud?

Image processing of the Turin Shroud (TS) shows that the Man represented in it has undergone an under glenoidal dislocation of the humerus on the righ...
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