The Elephant Man - Joseph Carey Merrick

Joseph Merrick was one of the most best-known Londoners of his time. He was also the most physically repugnant. Merrick was known as the terrible "Elephant Man".

Joseph Carey Merrick was born on August 5, 1862, at 50 Lee Street, Leicester. When he was two years old, his mother noticed that some areas of his skin began to change. Some darkened, discolored skin growths were appearing, and they began to look bumpy and rough. Lumps began to grow under the boy's skin--on his neck, his chest, and the back of his head. Mary Jane Merrick began to worry about her son, Joseph. The other boys were starting to make fun of him. As Joseph grew older, he began to look even more strange. The right side of his head began to grow, as did his right arm and hand. By the time he was 12 years old, Joseph's hand was so deformed as to be useless. The growths on his skin were now large and repulsive to look at.

 

Over the next years, Joseph left home, tried working in a factory but was abused by the workers there, and finally ended up in a freak show. By now his face was distorted by the overgrown half of his head, and the flesh around his nose had grown, too, leading the show promoter to dub Joseph "The Elephant Man."

 

More than anything, Joseph Merrick wanted to be like other people. He often wished he could lie down and sleep, but because of the size and weight of his head he had to sleep sitting up. One morning in 1890 he was found lying down in bed on his back, dead. The weight of his head had crushed his windpipe, and he suffocated. He was 28 years old. 

 

At the time Joseph Carey Merrick lived (1862-1890), leading authorities stated he suffered from elephantiasis. This is a disorder of the lymphatic system that causes parts of the body to swell to a huge size. In 1976 a doctor postulated that Merrick suffered from neurofibromatosis, a rare disorder that causes tumors to grow on the nervous system. Photos of Merrick, however, do not show the brown skin spots characteristic of the disorder. Also, his disfigurement came not from tumors but from bone and skin overgrowth. Unfortunately, even today people still (wrongly) call neurofibromatosis the "Elephant Man disease." 

 

It wasn't until 1996 that the answer to what affected Merrick was found. A radiologist, Amita Sharma, of the National Institutes of Health (U.S.), examined x-rays and CT scans of Merrick's skeleton (kept at the Royal London Hospital since his death). Dr. Sharma determined that Merrick had Proteus syndrome, an extremely rare disorder, itself only identified in 1979.

 

Source :- http://www.unbelievableinfo.com/2013/12/the-elephant-man-joseph-carey-merrick.html