Maestro Tomás Carrasquilla was one of the most famous Colombian writers of the 19th century. He was born in 1858 in the town of Santo Domingo, Antioquia and died in 1940 at the cost of his injuries and severe bone diseases. The author of works such as fruits of my land, the Marchioness of Yolombó and in the right hand of God the Father, are now consolidated in a house museum that has its doors open to the public.
Dr. Timisay Monsalve Vargas, director of the Anthropology and Forensic Laboratory of the University of Antioquia, wanted to make one of the first osteobiographies of Colombia. To do this, she went to the Basilica with Carrasquilla’s family and with the directors of the cemetery museum to exhume the body that was in a metal copper. The idea was to be able to determine a little more about the writer’s history from his bone analysis.
“In this case we gave him a CT, that is, Tomás Carrasquilla, because each bone piece of Tomás, including the phalanges, the hands, the feet, all the bone pieces that he had were labeled with that. It was said that he was robust and sober,” explained Monsalve. “In that little metal chest tied with rope and tight, it was semi-mummified, which means that some bone pieces were still with soft tissue attached. We bring it to the laboratory and here we begin with everything that is going to be the process of treating remains to be able to evaluate Tomás Carrasquilla,” he added.
Furthermore, Monsalve pointed out that at the time of the review and proper placement of the anatomy of the literary man’s body, several fractures and injuries were evident that “he did not even know where to start.” In the last years of his life, Maestro Carrasquilla became blind, and shortly after, he partially recovered his sight. There are those who mention that as an older adult they never saw him walk. His health problems were serious, so much so that one of his hands was sprained and one of his legs was amputated because he had canker sore. Likewise, within his pathology he presented diabetes and arteritis.
To do the research, Dr. Monsalve worked with a Spanish traumatologist and an American bioarchaeologist. Together they built the documented history of the sufferings of this Colombian writer. This work in Colombia provides relevant information, therefore, the analysis of his skeletal remains is added to his biography.
“He was born in 1858, that means that Colombia was 50 years old, after independence and was being formed as a republic. And Carrasquilla is wondering about who we are and how we are building ourselves as citizens in a new republic,” said Leticia Bernal, writer of the biography of Tomás Carrasquilla with unpublished letters from the author.
“We are talking about a time when there is no electric light, there is no telephone, there is nothing, the home has a wood stove, and next to the home we begin to talk about ghosts and fantastic stories. Carrasquilla uses that popular knowledge whenever he can. “He created characters that had universal value,” said Bernal.
His traces can still be traced to his house museum, in his hometown, a space dedicated to writing, literature, photography and the great works of the Colombian writer. Carrasquilla himself wrote in one of his texts: “In my parents’ house there were not a few books and quite a few readers, because there they had me, book in hand at all hours reading, reading and I think that in the hole where they bury me it opens to read me the library of death.”
The report revealed that Carrasquilla suffered unspeakable pain from his twisted body. “She had some vertebrae that fused in the lumbar part and in the thoracic part, she had Scheuermann’s kyphosis and osteoporosis,” said Monsalve. Apparently, the writer throughout his life did not take care of his health either, since he liked to drink and smoke, that frequency plus his diabetes was the cause of the decline in his well-being. However, despite his ailments, he did not stop creating stories, which made him look much more admirable.