Of the older writers Hellwigius, Horstius, and Schurig speak of petrifaction of the arm.

In the Philosophical Transactions there was a case recorded in which the muscles and ligaments were so extensively converted into bone that all the joints were fixed, even including the vertebrae, head, and lower jaw.

In a short time this man was, as it were, one single bone from his head to his knees, the only joints movable being the right wrist and knee.

For over a century there has been in the Trinity College at Dublin the skeleton of a man who died about 20 miles from the city of Cork.

The muscles about the scapula, and the dorsum of the ilium (the glutei) were converted into great masses of bone, equal to the original muscles in thickness and bulk.