4 Vitamin C deficiency, scurvy

Scurvy is the clinical manifestation of severe deficiency of vitamin C and causes depressed osteoblastic activity and defective collagen formation, resulting in damage to blood vessels with associated haemorrhagic phenomena. It is the skeletal responses to haemorrhage (porosity and / or sub-periosteal new bone formation) that are key to the identification of scurvy in skeletal remains; the exact expression of such changes varies with age. …