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Possibly
the most interesting of the examples of skin-anomaly was the "Elephant-man"
of London. His real name was Merrick. He was born at Leicester (England), and
gave an elaborate account of shock experienced by his mother shortly before
his birth, when she was knocked down by an elephant at a circus; to this circumstance
he attributed his un-fortunate condition. He derived his name from a proboscis-like
projection of his nose and lips, together with a peculiar deformity of the forehead.
He was victimized by showmen during his early life, and for a time was shown
in Whitechapel Road, where his exhibition was stoppecl by the police. He was
afterward shown in Belgium, and was there plundered of all his savings. The
gruesome spectacle he presented ostracized him from the pleasures of friendship
and society, and sometimes interfered with his travels. On one occasion a steamboat
captain refused to take him as a passenger. Treves exhibited him twice before
the Pathological Society of London. His affection was not elephantiasis, but
a complication of congenital hypertrophy of certain bones and pachydermatocele
and papilloma of the skin. From his youth he suffered from a disease of the
left hipjoint. The papillary masses developed on the skin of the back, buttock,
and occiput. In the right pectoral and posterior aspect of the right axillary
region, and over the buttocks, the affected skin hung in heavy pendulous flaps.
His left arm was free from disease. His head grew so heavy that at length he
had great difficulty in holding it up. He slept in a sitting or crouching position,
with his hands clasped over his legs, and his head on his knees. If he lay down
flat, the heavy head showed a tendancy to fall back and produce a sense of suffocation.
For a long time he was an inmate of the London Hospital, where special quarters
were provided for him, and it was there that he was found dead, April 11, 1890:
while in bed his ponderous head had fallen backward and dislocated his neck. |
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