DUKES OF BRABANT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 13

DUKES OF BRABANT.

SKELETONS EXAMINED. CHARACTERISTICS IN COMMON. The skeletons of the Dukes of Brabant, Godfrey 11., Godfrey HI. and Henry I. were exhumed during restoration 'work in the Church of Saint Pierre, Louvain, recently, and Professor Nelis, expert in anatomy, got permission to examine them. He then went to the Abbey of Affingham arid examined the skeletons of other Dukes of Brabant, Godfrey-the-Bearded, Henry-the-Monk and Godfrey of Gaesbeek, . . - His work is. per haps unique, there being few opportunities of obtaining skeletons of.members of. the same family for several generations.. Professor. Nelis discovered no less than sixty characteristics peculiar to the Dukes. These were repeated, but never in exactly the same degree, as inherited peculiarities .tend to increase or decrease.. The dukes were ,-all abnormally tall and: had •elongated spines, . which finally developed into, an extra; vertebrae in a later membe- of "the family. Each skull, in front of the carotoid cavity, has a kind of "spur," found only once in 500 cases, normally. Many of the outstanding features are matters of history, of course, the dukes resembling one another in a remarkable manner, especially in the shape of the skall i»4,aos«i