Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [129]
There have been individuals who could take the skin of the forehead and pull it down over the nose, or raise the skin of the neck over the mouth. They also occasionally have an associate muscular development in the subcutaneous tissues similar to the panniculus adiposus of quadrupeds, giving them preternatural motile power over the skin. The man recently exhibited under the title of the "Elastic-Skin Man" was an example of this anomaly. The first of this class of exhibitionists was seen in Buda-Pesth some years since and possessed great elasticity in the skin of his whole body; even his nose could be stretched. Figure 70 represents a photograph of an exhibitionist named Felix Wehrle, who besides having the power to stretch his skin could readily bend his fingers backward and forward. The photograph was taken in January, 1888.
In these congenital cases there is loose attachment of the skin without hypertrophy, to which the term dermatolysis is restricted by Crocker. Job van Meekren, the celebrated Dutch physician of the seventeenth century, states that in 1657 a Spaniard, Georgius Albes, is reported to have been able to draw the skin of the left pectoral region to the left ear, or the skin under the face over the chin to the vertex. The skin over the knee could be extended half a yard, and when it retracted to its normal position it was not in folds. Seiffert examined a case of this nature in a young man of nineteen, and, contrary to Kopp's supposition, found that in some skin from over the left second rib the elastic fibers were quite normal, but there was transformation of the connective tissue of the dermis into an unformed tissue like a myxoma, with total disappearance of the connective-tissue bundles. Laxity of the skin after distention is often seen in multipara, both in the breasts and in the abdominal walls, and also from obesity, but in all such cases the skin falls in folds, and does not have a normal appearance like that of the true "elastic-skin man."
Occasionally abnormal development of the scalp is noticed. McDowall of twenty-two. On each side of the median line of the head there were five deep furrows, more curved and shorter as the distance from the median line increased. In the illustration the hair in the furrows is left longer than that on the rest of the head. The patient was distinctly microcephalic and the right side of the body was markedly wasted. The folds were due to hypertrophy of the muscles and scalp, and the same sort of furrowing is noticed when a dog "pricks his ears." This case may possibly be considered as an example of reversion to inferior types. Cowan records two cases of the foregoing nature in idiots. The first case was a paralytic idiot of thirty-nine, whose cranial development was small in proportion to the size of the face and body; the cranium was oxycephalic; the scalp was lax and redundant and the hair thin; there were 13 furrows, five on each side running anteroposteriorly, and three in the occipital region running transversely. The occipitofrontalis muscle had no action on them. The second case was that of an idiot of forty-four of a more degraded type than the previous one. The cranium was round and bullet-shaped and the hair generally thick. The scalp was not so lax as in the other case, but the furrows were more crooked. By tickling the scalp over the back of the neck the two median furrows involuntarily deepened.
Impervious Skin.--There have been individuals who claimed that their skin was impervious to ordinary puncture, and from time to time these individuals have appeared in some of the larger medical clinics of the world for inspection. According to a recent number of the London Graphic, there is in Berlin a Singhalese who baffles all investigations by physicians by the impenetrability of his skin. The bronzed Easterner, a Hercules in shape, claims to have found an elixir which will render the human skin impervious to any metal point or sharpened edge of a knife or dagger, and calls himself the "Man with Iron Skin." He is now exhibiting himself, and his greatest
In these congenital cases there is loose attachment of the skin without hypertrophy, to which the term dermatolysis is restricted by Crocker. Job van Meekren, the celebrated Dutch physician of the seventeenth century, states that in 1657 a Spaniard, Georgius Albes, is reported to have been able to draw the skin of the left pectoral region to the left ear, or the skin under the face over the chin to the vertex. The skin over the knee could be extended half a yard, and when it retracted to its normal position it was not in folds. Seiffert examined a case of this nature in a young man of nineteen, and, contrary to Kopp's supposition, found that in some skin from over the left second rib the elastic fibers were quite normal, but there was transformation of the connective tissue of the dermis into an unformed tissue like a myxoma, with total disappearance of the connective-tissue bundles. Laxity of the skin after distention is often seen in multipara, both in the breasts and in the abdominal walls, and also from obesity, but in all such cases the skin falls in folds, and does not have a normal appearance like that of the true "elastic-skin man."
Occasionally abnormal development of the scalp is noticed. McDowall of twenty-two. On each side of the median line of the head there were five deep furrows, more curved and shorter as the distance from the median line increased. In the illustration the hair in the furrows is left longer than that on the rest of the head. The patient was distinctly microcephalic and the right side of the body was markedly wasted. The folds were due to hypertrophy of the muscles and scalp, and the same sort of furrowing is noticed when a dog "pricks his ears." This case may possibly be considered as an example of reversion to inferior types. Cowan records two cases of the foregoing nature in idiots. The first case was a paralytic idiot of thirty-nine, whose cranial development was small in proportion to the size of the face and body; the cranium was oxycephalic; the scalp was lax and redundant and the hair thin; there were 13 furrows, five on each side running anteroposteriorly, and three in the occipital region running transversely. The occipitofrontalis muscle had no action on them. The second case was that of an idiot of forty-four of a more degraded type than the previous one. The cranium was round and bullet-shaped and the hair generally thick. The scalp was not so lax as in the other case, but the furrows were more crooked. By tickling the scalp over the back of the neck the two median furrows involuntarily deepened.
Impervious Skin.--There have been individuals who claimed that their skin was impervious to ordinary puncture, and from time to time these individuals have appeared in some of the larger medical clinics of the world for inspection. According to a recent number of the London Graphic, there is in Berlin a Singhalese who baffles all investigations by physicians by the impenetrability of his skin. The bronzed Easterner, a Hercules in shape, claims to have found an elixir which will render the human skin impervious to any metal point or sharpened edge of a knife or dagger, and calls himself the "Man with Iron Skin." He is now exhibiting himself, and his greatest