Recently a number of television shows, documentaries and circulating picture sets have generated great interest in the genetic phenomena of primordial dwarfism. These tiny people, these seemingly fragile, delicate and near ethereal human beings conjure images of gossamer fairies and quaint folk stories. Such enchanting imagery is likely the root of this new interest in the condition.The first individual to be medically cited with what we now call primordial dwarfism was Caroline Crachami. The story of ‘The Sicilian Fairy’ is inspiring, tragic and empowering all at once depending on which version of her biography one believes. Regardless, her story is one that should be told and remembered for it demonstrates the greed often found average men and chronicles the careless exploitation of a remarkable human being.
According to the pamphlet entitled Memoirs of Miss Crachami, the Celebrated Sicilian Dwarf Caroline Crachami was born at Palermo in Sicily on November 15, 1815. Caroline Crachami purportedly only weighted one pound at birth and measured a scant eight inches in height. Caroline was the only unique child of five siblings and, despite claims of exhibitions in Panama, Miss Crachami first came to major public prominence during an 1824 visit to England. While there Miss Crachami was accompanied by one Dr. Gilligan who acted as her agent and he exhibited her in Liverpool, Birmingham and Oxford before finally taking her to London where she was exhibited in Mayfair.
Crachami caused a great amount of sensation and proved to be incredibly popular. Hundreds of people would cue up daily and the pay one shilling admission to view the nine-year-old nineteen inch marvel. For the most part, inside the exhibit, Miss Crachami would simply wander around the stage while listening to music. For a few shillings more one was permitted to handle the tiny girl, permitted to dance a little with her, to pat her head and feed her a biscuit or two. King George IV was and admirer as were three hundred members of the English nobility. More than three thousand members of high society visited and played with the doll-like Crachami and likely thousands more common folk did so as well.
The exhibiting schedule was gruelling and on June 3rd of 1824, after receiving more that two hundred patrons, the tiny Miss Crachami collapsed and expired during exhibition.
Her exhibitor, Dr. Gilligan, shopped Crachami’s earthly remains around to various medical institutions before selling them to the anatomist John Hunter for $500, and this is where the tale takes a tragic twist. Caroline was a child far younger than the nine years she was billed as. Modern examinations of her remains place her age at no more than three. She was also likely not Sicilian and probably hailed from Ireland where her parents read of her death in the Cork Inquirer. Her father quickly ferried to England in an attempt to halt any dissection and autopsy. However he arrived too late and Caroline’s bones had already been stripped bare.
The skeleton of Caroline Crachami now resides at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons together with a few mementoes of her life including a pair of her silk stockings, her slippers, a ruby ring and casts of her face and arm. There Caroline forever stands next to The Irish Giant Charles Byrne, his seven foot seven skeleton standing as a silent protector.
image: Portrait of Caroline Crachami by Alfred Edward Chalon.
For more on the life of Caroline Crachami I highly recommend Jan Bondeson's book A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities .
Note: Caroline Crachami has also been cited as having Seckel's syndrome or 'bird headed dwarfism', however this diagnosis is not the consensus of the medical community.
Addendum: The family of Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley, the tiny child linked above, maintains a website. Her medical expenses are substantial and, if you wish, you can help through a Paypal donation.
Link
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The topic of ectrodactyly has been discussed in the past on this very site. The story of Grady Stiles Jr. detailed the condition at length but, to summarize, ectrodactyly is a rare congenital deformity of the hand where the middle digit is missing and the hand is cleft where the metacarpal of the finger should be. It is perhaps best known as ‘lobster claw syndrome’. It is an inherited condition and often occurs in both the hands and the feet. It generally affects about 1 in 90,000 babies, with males and females equally likely to be affected.However, with the so called Ostrich People of Zimbabwe, ectrodactyly occurs in roughly 1 in 4 infants. The Vadoma are a tribe living in near seclusion along the Zambezi River Valley in western Zimbabwe. They were considered something of a legend, a myth, until their mainstream discovery by one Charles Sutton in the 1950’s. The Vadoma are a popular example of the genetic effects of small population size on genetic defects and mutation. Due to the Vadoma tribe's isolation, their population has maintained a constant appearance of ectrodactyly, and due to the comparatively small gene pool, the condition is much more frequent than elsewhere.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Vadoma condition is the total acceptance and adaptation of the population. The deformity is not regarded as a handicap; rather it is simply viewed as a fact of life.
A brief video of the Ostrich People can be found here.
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Labels: deformity, ectrodactyly, medical
Images of persons afflicted with elephantiasis often crop up online and for decades the condition had been wrongfully fingered as the cause of the deformities distressing Joseph ‘The Elephant Man’ Merrick. For the record, Merrick likely suffered from Proteus syndrome; however the public mind continues to associate his bulbous and sagging appearance with the symptoms presented by elephantiasis.Elephantiasis, medically known as lymphatic filariasis, is easy recognized. It is presumed that the common name refers to the resemblance of the sufferer's limbs to the thick, baggy skin on the limbs and trunks of elephants. Typically the lower limbs and appendages are affected by the condition and, perhaps most famously, the scrotum can swell to gigantic proportions.
The earliest record of the condition can be found in ancient Egypt where a statue of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II depicts swollen limbs and various other artifacts provide evidence. The first written accounts were made by the Greeks who carefully chronicled the differences between elephantiasis and leprosy. Then during the European exploration of Goa, between 1588 and 1592, Jan Huygen Linschoten wrote that the inhabitants he observed were ‘all born with one of their legs and one foot from the knee downwards as thick as an elephant’s leg’. Although this was the first European account of lymphatic filariasis symptoms, more documentation was made as parts of Africa and Asia were further explored.
The usual cause of elephantiasis is nearly as horrific as the appearance of the condition itself. In 1876 a parasitic worm infestation was discovered to the culprit and, since that initial discovery, multiple worm varieties have been identified. The worm is transferred to the host via mosquitoes.
When an infected female mosquito bites a person, she injects the worm larvae, called microfilariae, into the blood. The microfilariae reproduce and spread throughout the bloodstream, where they can live for many years. Often symptoms do not appear until many years after the initial infection. As the parasites accumulate in the blood vessels, they restrict circulation and cause fluid to build up in surrounding tissues. Several studies have shown that these daily cleaning routines can be an effective way to limit the symptoms of lymphatic filariasis. The effectiveness of these treatments suggests that many of the symptoms of elephantiasis are not directly a result of the lymphatic filariasis but rather the effect of secondary skin infections.
Medicines to treat elephantiasis are most effective when used soon after infection, but they do have some toxic side effects. Also, as the disease has few symptoms directly after infection, few persons are treated effectively or are treated long after physical damage has been done.
Elephantiasis currently affects 120 million people worldwide, and of those 40 million display serious symptoms. As of yet, there is neither a cure nor a vaccine, however in 2003 an effective treatment was identified and is now in clinical trials.
For more information on medical marvels I highly recommend Mutants by Armand Marie. Leroi.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Over one thousand years before Homer, there exists a written account by Egyptian Pepy II of the 6th dynasty in which he urges one of his generals to look after a pygmy discovered on an expedition to the south. Furthermore, Amenemope at the end of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. set down laws to protect those born different from the norm:‘Mock not the blind nor deride the dwarf nor block the cripple's path; don't tease a man made ill by a god nor make outcry when he blunders.’
Seneb was a 4th or early 5th Dynasty dwarf and was chief of the royal wardrobe and priest of the funerary cults of Khufu. A statue still exists of him and it depicts him with his family - including his wife who was of normal stature. Also, the Egyptian gods Bes and Ptah were often depicted as dwarves. To say that dwarves were accepted and often revered members of ancient Egyptian society would be an understatement.
Dwarfism was unusually common in ancient
Dwarves are not to be confused with pigmies though. Pygmies are and entire race of persons of small stature first extensively written of by Homer in the Iliad. The Geranomachia, or pygmy war, was a popular topic for ancient writers and during the early modern age naturalist were clamoring to ‘rediscover’ the pygmies. In the late 1699, Edward Tyson wrote a lengthy paper on a pygmy he dissected attempting to prove that the creature was not human and thus modern man was superior. He proved to be correct in his first assumption as, looking back on the document; the pygmy was actually a chimpanzee.
The first pygmy to be rediscovered was named Akadimoo and belonged to the ‘Aka’ tribe who dwell in the forests of
‘I looked up and, sure enough, was the strange little creature perched upon Mohammed’s right shoulder, nervously hugging his head, and casting glances of alarm in every direction. Thus, at last, I was able to feast my eyes upon a living embodiment of the myths of some thousand years!’
Three years later two children of the Aka tribe, named Thibaut and Chair-Allah were presented to King Victor Emmanuel II in
In broad terms, a pygmy is a member of a tribe in which the top height is less than 150 centimeters (four feet and ten inches) however the shortest tribe is Efe at 135 centimeters (four feet and five inches). Furthermore, pygmies tend to have shorter legs and longer arms when compared to the average man. Also, their teeth and heads also appear to be larger that what is considered proportional.
And then there are midgets and giants.
A midget is essentially a slang term for a proportioned individual in miniature while a giant is basically a proportion, uh, giant human being. Both have been staples of the sideshow and countless human curiosity stories and both result from a similar cause.
At the base of the brain lies the pituitary gland. On average, it is the size of a pea and it secretes a total of six hormones. But the hormone is question here is growth hormone – of which it makes one thousand times more that any of the other five. Secreted into the bloodstream it tells the cells of the body to grow and divide. By entering the bloodstream, it ensures that all portions of the body grow at an equal rate.
In gigantism – the condition of being a giant, of which there are about 50 subgroups – the pituitary gland produces far too much growth hormone and is usually due to an enlarged gland. This enlargement is either genetic or the result of a tumor and mutation and in one case, that of the Irish giant Charles Byrne (pictured above), the enlarged pituitary was comparable in size to a peach.
In the case of a midget, the gland is either too small or the cells lack the receptors the growth hormone binds to. The lack of a receptor can be a mutation or genetic – as exampled by a village in the Ecuadorian Andes where and entire community, inbreed due to location, are all midgets under four feet in height.
Lastly, there is one documented case in which a man was both a dwarf and a giant during his lifetime. Adam Rainer was born in
Adam Rainer is the only person in medical history to have been classified both as a dwarf and a giant.
Portions of the article above include excepts from Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Leroi.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Few Human Marvels can ever compare to the unusual case of Count Orloff. He was a human oddity sometimes incorrectly billed as ossified, and correctly touted as being transparent.Ivannow Wladislaus von Dziarski-Orloff was born in
While during his career Orloff was known as an ossified man, his condition was actually quite the opposite. Orloff actually had a lack of bone density and this allowed his bones to bend and twist. Furthermore, his skin was paper thin and his musculature so atrophied that – with the aid of a bright spotlight - spectators could actually see the blood coursing through his veins. Not only that, but when a bright light was placed behind Orloff, the warm glow could actually been seen from the other side.
As strange as Orloff was – many promoters felt a need to further embellish it. As a result - to this day, some still claim that a person could read a newspaper through the body of Orloff. A claim made in an early pamphlet.
Orloff was known primarily as the Living Ossified and Transparent Man, but later in life he adopted the moniker of ‘The Human Window Pane’. His tendency to show himself as a medical specimen allowed him to travel around the world. Eventually he went into business for himself – he owned his own successful sideshow.
Orloff died in 1904.
Persons with unusual skin conditions often used their affliction to their financial advantage in the world of the sideshow. The alligator-skinned (sometimes called elephant-skinned) individual became a very common attraction in the golden age of sideshow - in fact few popular sideshows were without at least one such individual. Not to be confused with the common gaff (faked display) Jake the Alligator Boy.The most severe and shocking form of congenital ichthyosis is Harlequin ichthyosis, also know as Harlequin fetus – as until recently survival of the condition was limited to mere hours after birth. Many of the children born with Harlequin ichthyosis ended up in Victorian pickled punk shows as ‘devil children’ but with the advent of modern anti-inflammatory and disinfectants some children have survived more than a decade. The affected child is born not with skin, but instead massive, diamond-shaped scales. Furthermore the eyes, ears, mouth, and other appendages can be abnormally contracted and even ‘turned inside out’. The eyelids especially can appear very disturbing. The scaly armor restricts movement to an alarming degree and because the skin is cracked where normal skin would fold, bacteria and other contaminants easily pass into the cracks and can cause lethal infections.
The term harlequin refers to the baby's facial expression and the diamond-shaped pattern of the scales. The jester and harlequins of the 17th century wore costumes with diamond patterns on them, as well as a particular style of face paint. The features of the harlequin fetus mimic this stylized makeup, and their faces are often pulled tight into grim parodies of a clown's smile.
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Labels: deformity, disfigured, medical
The Wolf Boy, Living Werewolf or Dog-Faced Boy have been fixtures of the sideshow world for centuries. Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy is likely the most famous of the lot however cases of hypertrichosis have been reported and documented long before Jo-Jo.Hypertrichosis is really a blanket medical term that refers to excessive body hair. It can actually be generalized, symmetrically affecting most of the torso and limbs, or localized, affecting only a small area or location. The term is, however, usually reserved to refer to very above-average amount of normal body hair that is unwanted.
Nearly all the skin of the human body – with the exception of the palms and soles of the feet – are covered with hairs or hair follicles. The density of the hairs per square centimeter, the thickness of the hairs, color of the hairs, speed of hair growth, and qualities such as kinkiness tend to vary from one part of the body to another and also from one person to another. But in hypertrichosis all of the various controllers for the regulation of that genetic information are these lacking, damaged or none existent. Furthermore, there are a few subcategories of hypertrichosis.
Congenital hypertrichosis terminalis is the variation most people associate with the condition. This version involves all over body hair growth. Interestingly this form of hypertrichosis is almost always associated with gingival hyperplasia – meaning these ‘savage and vicious’ wolf men often posses very few teeth. Furthermore persons afflicted are said to have soft, smooth and gentle voices. Naevoid hypertrichosis is an unusual form of hypertrichosis where a solitary circumscribed area of hair growth occurs. It is not usually associated with any other diseases, except if it arises as a faun-tail on the lower back, then it may indicate underlying spina bifida. Naevoid hypertrichosis can occur at birth or appear later in life and symptoms can range from hairy tufted ears, tails, a heavy unibrow or excessive beard growth in females and males alike. Finally, Congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa is a very rare form of hypertrichosis with only about 50 cases reported worldwide since the Middle Ages. The condition is characterized by excessive hair growth on a child at birth. Most of the body is covered with lanugo hair, which is a fine, soft and silky hair that covers the fetus and which is usually shed at around 8 months gestation and replaced with fine vellus hair. In this condition the hair continues to grow throughout life. The initial shock of a fur covered infant, however, is luckily a very rare occurrence.
The exact cause of hypertrichosis is unknown. But it is believe to be a genetic disorder that is inherited or occurs as a result of spontaneous mutation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Labels: hypertrichosis, medical
Fragonard was prolific despite the tedious nature of his preservation techniques. Despite the fact that every blood vessel required wax injections and that every surface, muscle and nerve needed to be individually coated in wax, in nine years Fragonard created thousands of anatomical items to be used in education or, on occasion, displayed as pieces of art.
Only 21 of his models remain today. Nearly 250 years after their creation, few show many signs of age.
Read more about the life Honoré Fragonard and his museum here.
image: (Above) 'Dancing foetuses' circa 1766-1771. (Top) Wax-injected human head circa 1766-1771.
The name of this gentleman is Alfred Langevin. At the time of the video, he resided in Detroit, Michigan but was under the employ of Robert Ripley. Mr. Langevin was featured not only in the Believe-It-Or-Not cartoons of Ripley, but also appeared in Ripley’s renowned Odditorium from 1933 to 1940 and was even featured on the 1933 Odditorium postcard.
Not only could Mr. Langevin use his eye socket to smoke, he could also blow up balloons and play a recorder. It should be noted that Mr. Langevin indeed had two very real and functioning eyes. The medical reason for his unusual ability remains unknown but is likely due to an anomaly in the development of his tear gland. This rare tear gland defect is responsible for the fairly recent Guinness Book category of ‘squirting milk from the eye’. The record is currently held by Mike Moraal of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The record is for distance and Mike managed 8.745 feet in 2001.
image: Mr. Langevin demonstrating his unique ability alongside fellow performer 'Big Mouth' Paul McWilliams during their run with Ripley.
In 1994, an athletic man we’ll call John was involved in a car crash. He was uninjured, and X-rays of his spine showed no fractures. They did, however, reveal unusually dense bones. John’s radiologist referred him to Karl Insogna, the director of the Yale Bone Center. "His bone density was eight times higher than average for a man his age," Insogna recalls. This fact may not have surprised John, who used to sink like a stone when he tried to swim.Six years later, Insogna heard a fellow physician mention he’d seen a family with very high bone mass. Together they traced the family tree, linking John to an extended kin group sprinkled up and down the Eastern seaboard. The affected kin all had very dense bones and unusually square jaws, but otherwise normal skeletons. One of the affected family members is a physician in Alabama. "He’s had several failed hip replacements because they can’t screw the prosthesis into his bone," Insogna says. "It’s too hard." Studying the family, Insogna’s team zeroed in on a region of chromosome 11 likely linked to the unusual trait. But at the time, he says, the region was just too long to sequence.
From The Scientist via Neatorama.
image: Torus palatinus, a bony, lobulated outgrowth typically found in the hard palate of people with a particular LRP5 mutation.
Labels: medical
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Alien hand syndrome, sometimes known as anarchic hand or Dr. Strangelove syndrome, was first identified in 1908 however it was not formally defined or understood until 1972. It is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a mind of its own. The hand will move with out the will of the sufferer. The movements may be random or purposeful, and may affect the dominant or non-dominant hand.Alien Hand Syndrom occurs most often in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of his brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy. It may also manifest after head trauma, stroke, tumor, or infection.
Currently, there is no cure for Alien Hand Syndrome.
image: Sculture by Takeshi Yamada.
M>uch of what we know of ancestral Maori tattoo and tradition comes from the studies and documentations made by Major-General Horatio Gordon Robley. While in New Zealand, Robley befriended the Maori there and used his artistic skills to illustrate and paint scenes of the Maori way of life. Currently the Dominion Museum in Wellington house seventy of his paintings and his sketches provided a basis for Cassells' publication Races of Mankind.
However, Robley is perhaps most well known for his eccentric collection.
The Maori mummified the tattooed heads of their tribesmen and Robley decided to acquire as many as possible. Over the years he built a collection of 35. In 1908 he offered them to the New Zealand Government for £1,000 but his offer was denied. Today, 30 of his heads are in the collection of the Natural History Museum in New York.
Read more about the life of Robley here.
image: Robley and his collection, from the book Medicine Man.
Isaac W. Sprague was born on May 21, 1841 in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. According to one of his early cabinet cards, he was a normal and active child until the age of twelve – when he began to rapidly lose weight.His concerned parents, alarmed by his weight lost, forbade young Isaac from high energy activities. Despite this, the boy continued to loose weight and his now terrified parents took Isaac to the best doctors they could find. Unfortunately the doctors were also baffled and Isaac continued to wither away despite a healthy appetite.
As an adult, Isaac apprenticed under his father as a cobbler and later worked as a grocer. However, as his emaciation continued, Isaac found his energy depleted. It soon became too difficult for Isaac to continue working – it was then that the world of sideshow came calling.
In 1865, during a visit to a local carnival a promoter spotted Isaac and offered him a job. At first, the young man refused. But he soon realized that he could earn a good living by capitalizing on his looks. He began touring as 'The Living Skeleton' and quickly rose in popularity. In less than a year he auditioned for P. T. Barnum and was hired on a salary of $80 a week.
His career with Barnum was brief as Barnum's American Museum burned down for the second time in 1868. The skeletal Isaac barely managed to escape the museum alive – following his escape, he left sideshow for awhile.
During his premature retirement, he met and married a Miss Tamar Moore and had three healthy sons. In dire straights due to poor financial decisions, he resumed touring with Barnum and others. His financial problems, and perhaps a gambling addiction, continued and ultimately resulted in Isaac W. Sprague dying in poverty on January 5, 1887 in Chicago.
While his weight varied over his career, an official measurement was taken by a physician when Isaac was forty-four. At a height of five feet and six inches, Isaac weighed only forty-three pounds.
Despite numerous medical exams during his lifetime, his condition was never officially identified. He was labeled as having 'an extreme case of progressive muscular atrophy'. As a result Isaac was required to eat constantly. In fact, he was well known to carry a flask of sweetened dairy milk around his neck – drinking from it to from time to time to keep himself alive and conscious.
Believe it or not, the 'Living Skeleton' came to be a fairly common sideshow attraction. In fact, it was not uncommon, in a feat of inspired promotion, for a sideshow Skeleton Man to marry the local Fat Lady in an extravagant ceremony. The local press was, of course, always invited to attend.
Image: cabinet card from Sprague's stint with Barnum, circa 1868.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Piebald is a word often used to describe animals with large black and white spots, however in the golden age of sideshow – and even long before that - it was used to describe human beings with this unusual skin condition.Contrary to what one may assume, piebalding is not related to albinism and is instead caused by dominant mutations of an altogether different set of genes in a condition known as Vitiligo These mutations can occur in persons of any color. However, persons of African heritage with vitilligo make up the bulk of sideshow performers – often called leopard or zebra people - and are the subject of most of the medical history – most of that early history is filled with racist statements and ignorance.
The first image depicting 'piebalding' in a human being occurred in the pages of Histoire naturelle by Buffon. A lithograph features a young girl – around the age of five – standing amid an exhibit of curiosities with a two-tone body. Buffon never met the child first hand but owned an original painting the lithograph was based upon. The painting was done by an unknown Columbian artist in 1740 and bore the following inscription:
Despite this rather detailed pedigree, many naturalist of the day insisted that the child was the result of a white and a negresse and that to preserve the honor of the Society of Jesus it was written that both parents were slaves. Later, that diagnosis was changed, by Buffon, to include the union of a slave and an albino.
Despite the fact that many other children were born with piebald – John Richardson Primrose Bobey (1774, Jamaica), Magdeleine (1783, St. Lucia) George Gratton (1808, St. Vincent) and Lisbey (1905, Honduras) – Buffons odd hypothesis stood as fact for nearly two hundred years.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSLabels: albino, disfigured, medical
The Two-Headed Boy of Bengal was born in the
The term ‘Two-Headed’ may be a bit misleading as rather that two heads side by side, the Boy actually had head atop the other. When compared to the average child, both heads were of an appropriate size and development. The second head sat atop the main head inverted and simply ended in a neck-like stump. The second head seemed to, at times, function independently from the main head. When the boy cried or smiled the features of the second head did not always match. Yet, when the main head was fed, the second head would produce saliva. Furthermore, if the second head was presented with a breast to suckle – it would attemp to do so. While the main head was well formed the secondary head did posses some irregularities. The eyes and ears were underdeveloped. The tongue was small and the jaw malformed but both were capable of motion. When the Boy slept, the secondary head would often be observed alert and awake – eyes darting about.
Despite the attention the Boy of Bengal received, none of it was medical in nature. There were no intensive first hand medical examinations of the Boy on record and the vast majority of the press attention given to the Boy focused no on his condition, but rather his ‘freakish’ appearance. The Boy, who seemed to suffer no serious ill effects in relation to his condition, died at the age of four from a cobra bite. It was only then, after much unseemly business, that medicine was able to examine the case.
The Boy was buried near the
When Mr. Dent had dissected the heads he discovered that the brains were separate and distinct. Each brain was also enveloped in its proper coverings and it appeared as though both brains received the nutrition required to sustain life and thought. The skull of the Boy of Bengal can still be seen at the
The classification of this condition is today known as Craniopagus parasiticus and technically falls under the category of parasitic twins however many of the early naturalists have attempted to classify the Bengal case as a case of conjoined twins due to the signs of independent life given by the secondary head.
Previous to 1783 teratology texts listed no fewer that eight suspected cases of Craniopagus parasiticus however the Boy of Bengal case is not only the earliest well documented account, but also the first account of such a case surviving past infancy. Recently on
images : 1. Postcard from the Hunterian Museum of London 2. Hand drawings of the Boy of Bengal by Mr. Smith 3. Hand-colour drawings of The Boy of Bengal by Mr Dent
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While there is scarce material on Blanche Dumas, her alleged lover Juan Baptista dos Santos was the subject of some fairly intense study.Juan Baptista dos Santos was born in Portugal around 1843 in the town of Faro and was examined for the first time when he was only six months old. His parents and two siblings were well formed and it was said that his gestation and birth were uneventful. As a child, Juan was considered quite handsome, fit and well proportioned - except for the two distinct genitalia and extra fused limbs he possessed.
It was observed that urination proceeded simultaneously from both penises. What appeared to be a third leg dangling from the pubis was in fact two limbs fused together as one with a small and supernumerary anus. The compound limb had a patella but, while the limb joint was freely movable, it had no motor control or power of motion. A journal, published in London states that Juan Baptista dos Santos had been exhibited in Paris, and that the surgeons advised operation.
That operation never occurred as a further report from Havana, dated July, 1865, details a further detailed examination of Santos at twenty-two years of age. This report also brought forward the claim that Santos possessed an ‘animal passion’ and had a ravenous sexual appetite and permissive reputation. This same report claims that Juan Baptista dos Santos used both penises during intercourse and, after finishing with one he would continue with the other.
A further report details the physiology of Santos in full adulthood and is accompanied by a detailed illustration. This report also detailed Santos was in the habit of wearing this limb in a special sling or bound firmly to his right thigh. This not only prevented the limb from dangling, it also allowed him greater freedom of activity – he was said to be an avid horseback rider.
During his lifetime, Santos was perused by several sideshows and circuses. In 1865 – he turned down a contract worth 200,000 francs to perform in a French circus. However, Santos opted to exhibit himself to medical authorities and rare ‘special’ exhibitions. Despite his extensive medical examinations and relative fame in medial circles only one photo of Juan Baptista dos Santos and that to focuses mainly on his dual genitalia.
Image and excerpts taken from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine - image credited to Pare reproduction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Parasitic twining is believed to be related to the process that results in conjoined twins, thus parasitic twins are also often referred to as asymmetrical conjoined twins or unequal conjoined twins. The direct cause and reason for parasitic twining is still somewhat unknown however the leading theory states the two separate embryos or fetuses are formed in uteri and one of the twins stops developing during gestation and results in a vestigial to a healthy, otherwise mostly fully-formed individual twin. These parasitic twins are defined as parasitic, rather than conjoined, by being incompletely formed or wholly dependent on the body functions of the host twin – know as the autosite. The condition of parasitic twining does not have a standard appearance and the parasite can be attached at various locations on the body of the host twin. However, some standard classifications have come into regular medical terminology.
Just as conjoined twins united at the head are described as craniopagus or cephalopagus and the specific area of the head where the attachment occurs denotes the second half of the classification (for example, craniopagus occipitalis is the term for fusion in the occipital region and craniopagus parietalis is when the fusion is in the parietal region); craniopagus parasiticus is term for a parasitic head attached to the head of a more fully-developed twin. The most famous example of this case was the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal of 1783 however several other examples exist. Pare mentions and gives an illustration of a woman with a similar condition, having ‘two heads’ and there is another similar record of a Milanese girl who had two heads, one animated and the other quite dead. Upon her death and autopsy it was found that she also had two stomachs.
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine also mentions a woman in Bavaria in 1541 with two heads, one of which was deformed, who begged from door to door and the same text references a second naturalist who wrote of what seems the same Bavarian woman ‘of twenty-six with two heads, ‘one of which was comely and the other extremely ugly’.
Epigastric and Dipygus parasites are likely what most envision when they hear the words ‘parasitic twin’. The epigastric category describes the phenomenon of an incomplete twin, usually consisting of a stunted body attached at the lower abdomen often with a rudimentary head imbedded in the autosite's abdomen. Epigastric parasites are acephalic-acardiac, without a brain and or a heart, and are therefore completely dependent on the autosite. Basically, this condition describes limbs dangling from the belly of a child or adult however, there have been cases of entire ‘dead’ bodies attached at the belly and also singular heads. Dipygus (double buttock) and also pygomelia (limbs attached to the buttocks) parasitic twining describes duplication of the lower extremities only. In dipygus two small pelvises are formed side-by side and the autosite has control over all four legs. Often, two sets of sexual organs are present and there have been cases of both sets being fully functional, able to both conceive and procreate.
Finally, fetus in fetu parasitic twining is the stuff of nightmares. Fetus in fetu involves the complete encapsulation of a parasitic twin within the body of the autosite. This means it is conceivable a person can go through life unaware that they carry within them the body of their sibling, a sibling that is literally feeding off of their body resources. Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine presents many cases of fetus-in-fetu, some of which were not detected until the host began complaining of abdominal pains in adulthood as the twin grew. Often the twin is not discovered until after death as, in some cases, the twin remained dormant thought out the lifespan of the autosite. The placement of a fetus in fetu twin can be anywhere within the body of the autosite. At this moment, is it possible that you have small fetus ‘living’ in the grey matter of your brain - and that is no joke.
The tallest man in recorded history, Robert Wadlow, spent less than a year in the circus – and none of it officially in the sideshow. Wadlow, and those who today watch over his legacy, are adamantly against associating Robert with the sideshow or the word freak.While Wadlow was a giant, he was far from being a freak. In fact aside from his remarkable height he was beyond normal. He was a kind, intelligent man who is still remembered as a gentleman some 60 years after his passing.
He was the first born of a normal sized couple and was born on Feb. 22, 1918. By all accounts, Robert was a normal sized baby at eight pounds and six ounces but he quickly began to grow – within twelve months he ballooned to just over forty-four pounds. At the age of five he was five and a half feet tall and at the age of 9 he stood six feet, two inches.
His family was constantly hounded by showmen begging for a chance to display the human marvel. However the Wadlow family insisted that Robert experience as average an upbringing as possible – given the circumstances. Wadlow even joined the Boy Scouts when he was thirteen and became the largest Boy Scout in history – he was seven feet, one inch and weighed 340 pounds.
In high school Robert was popular and active in many extracurricular activities, even serving as the advertising manager for the yearbook. He was completely accepted by his peers. However, when he attended college he lost that acceptance and struggled with the stares. It bothered him so much that he dropped out and returned to his parents quite penniless.
That is when his brief stint with Ringling Bros. began. His 1937 contract was brief and had strict conditions and terms. First, Robert would only attend shows at Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden. He would display himself only two times a day for three minutes. He refused to allow any exaggeration of his height via media releases or standard height enhancing sideshow trickery like platform shoes, top hats and trick photography. Furthermore, Robert would only display himself in the centre ring and refused any association with the sideshow. Despite all of these restrictions, Robert proved to be incredibly popular.
Robert was so popular that following his time with Ringling Bros. he signed a fabulous contract with The International Shoe Company. The deal included quite a bit of travel and personal appearances and in just under a year Robert had made over 800 appearances and traveled over 300,000 miles. Perhaps most importantly, the company provided Robert with free shoes - a big deal when you are a size 37 and your shoes cost over $100 a piece.
Robert’s feet always gave him a lot of trouble and due to the weight they had to support, they formed blisters often. Believe it or not, it was a blister that killed the gentle giant.
On July 4th, 1940 – after appearing in a Forth of July – Robert developed a blister. That blister became infected and Robert was unable to check into a hospital as they could not accommodate a man of his size. The infection progressed as Robert was attended to in a makeshift medical facility based in Robert’s hotel room. Surgery, antibiotics and blood transfusions were not enough and Robert passed away on July 15th, 1940 at 1:30am. He was only twenty-two and stood eight feet, eleven inches.
His funeral was attended by 40,000 mourners. It took twelve pallbearers to hoist his thousand pound casket. A life sized statue of Robert Wadlow still stands in his hometown of Alton, Illinois.
It is a testament to a man who was the very definition of a Human Marvel.
Watch a short documentary on Robert Wadlow here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
James Morris was born in With Barnum and Bailey he was exhibited throughout North America and
As detailed in an earlier post, 'Rubber Men' were afflicted with a condition known as cutis hyperelastica or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. The syndrome results in a defect in collagen synthesis which in turn results in overly stretchable, and elastic, fragile, soft skin that easily forms welts and scars.
While Morris earned good money in his first season with Barnum and Bailey his popularity quickly dwindled and, do to a slight drinking and gambling problem, he took a second job as a barber opening a shop in
To learn more about Morris and other Human Marvels purchase American Sideshow .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Another form of human marvel is what is commonly referred to as an ‘anatomical wonder’. While some of these marvels are born with unusual physical characteristics that allow them to do astounding feats due to odd bits in their biology – a number of marvels were otherwise normal men and women who trained themselves to perform amazing feats. These trained working acts include the classic sword swallower, some contortionists and most acrobats, pincushions, blockheads, pain proof men, fire eaters and fakirs.Excellent examples of born ‘anatomical wonders’ include James Morris - who performed with Barnum and Bailey for many years as ‘The Elastic Skin Man’. He was able to stretch the skin of his cheek eight inches and pull his chest skin over his head. He was one of many Rubber Men - sometimes called ‘Indian Rubber Men’ when contortion was added to the act - with a condition that effected dermal elasticity called cutis hyperelastica or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Another anatomical wonder would include ‘Popeye, the Man with the Elastic Eyeballs’ who was able to make his eyes to protrude from his sockets independently. This condition has proved to be not that uncommon and seems to affect those of African decent more commonly than other races.
Furthermore, mention must be made of Melvin Burkhart (1907-2001 and pictured above) who was the father of the modern anatomical wonder working act – and perhaps the greatest trained sideshow marvel of all time.
image: The late, great Melvin Burkhart performing 'the human blockhead'.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe earliest written account of actual conjoined twins dates from 945, when conjoined twin brothers from
The subject of conjoined twins was a popular one in the o