Zurich. The paleopathological study of famous ‘patients’ can sometimes find important results among historical sources, but it is very rare to diagnose a pathology on ancient skeletal remains more than 500 years old and then find a document in which the deceased himself has described the disease. This is the case thanks to a study on the skeletal remains of Duke Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482) by the Division of Paleopathology of the University of Pisa, directed by Professor Valentina Giuffra, in collaboration with the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine of the University of Zurich (Francesco Galassi and Professor Frank Rühli). The study was published in the January 2018 issue of “Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology”. The remains of Federico da Montefeltro, exhumed in Urbino in 2000 by the Division of Paleopathology of Pisa, bear unequivocal signs of uric arthritis, a peri-articular pathognomonic osteolytic lesion of the inflammatory process that is typical of gout is present on the distal epiphysis of the first metatarsal of the duke’s right foot. (9Colonne)
