Forgotten Children: The Fetal and Infant Skeletal Remains of the W. D. Trotter Anatomy Museum, New Zealand

Abstract

Fetal and infant skeletal remains in anatomical collections remain an underutilized yet important source of information on the interactions of gender, class, and religion during pregnancy and infant loss. The W. D. Trotter Anatomy Museum at the University of Otago in New Zealand, founded in the nineteenth century, houses more than 2,000 models and anatomical “specimens,” with many of the skeletal remains lacking provenience information. This research aimed to both provide an inventory of the fetal and infant skeletal remains and identify through archival analysis the social context of those whose remains were obtained by the museum. An osteological analysis was carried out to assess the minimum number of individuals (MNI), estimate age-at-death, and provide evidence for pathology and dissection. The results are interpreted in the context of the archival accession data and historical information at the time to provide the social context in which these people lived and therefore information that may be related to their deaths and acquisition of their bodies by the university. Most of the infants within the collection died around the time of full-term birth, and some individuals have evidence for developmental pathology, birth trauma, and/or postmortem dissection. The historical context and legislation around body donation suggests structural inequality played a role in the acquisition of these infants’ remains from mothers (primarily poor and/or unmarried women) and that these remains went through a process of commodification and objectification and were retained as developmental teaching “specimens” and examples of pathology.