A case of Kennedy terminal ulcer in a 17th-century Italian mummy

Abstract

Giacomo Torno was born in 1539 (or 1541) in Naples. At the age of 18 he joined the Clerics Regular Theatines in San Paolo Maggiore and was welcomed on 30 October 1558. He suffered a stroke on 4 December 1608 and died 45 days later. Contemporary sources report that he appeared to be tormented by the devil during his illness, tormented by constant spasms in his arm, which caused him great discomfort. During the analysis of his mummified body, a discontinuity of the skin surface at the level of the sacrum was discovered. All morphological features indicate a wound that developed during the subject’s life. Based on historical sources, the fracture of the first coccygeal vertebra, the appearance of the lesion near death, and the shape of the lesion, it appears that this is the first recorded instance of the Kennedy terminal ulcer, identified through both direct and indirect sources