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Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [136]

By Root 8907 0
was free from excessive hair elsewhere, her nose and forehead being singularly bare. Her voice was very sweet; she was married at seventeen and a half, having two normal children, and nursed each for one month. "The bearded woman" of every circus side-show is an evidence of the curious interest in which these women are held. The accompanying illustration is a representation of a "bearded woman" born in Bracken County, Ky. Her beard measured 15 inches in length.

There is a class of anomalies in which there is an exaggerated development of hair. We would naturally expect to find the primitive peoples, who are not provided with artificial protection against the wind, supplied with an extra quantity of hair or having a hairy coat like animals; but this is sometimes found among civilized people. This abnormal presence of hair on the human body has been known for many years; the description of Esau in the Bible is an early instance. Aldrovandus says that in the sixteenth century there came to the Canary Islands a family consisting of a father, son, and two daughters, who were covered all over their bodies by long hair, and their portrait, certainly reproduced from life, resembles the modern instances of "dog men."

In 1883 there was shown in England and France, afterward in America, a girl of seven named "Krao," a native of Indo-China. The whole body of this child was covered with black hair. Her face was of the prognathic type, and this, with her extraordinary prehensile powers of feet and lips, gave her the title of "Darwin's missing link." In 1875 there was exhibited in Paris, under the name of "l'homme-chien" Adrien Jeftichew, a Russian peasant of fifty-five, whose face, head, back, and limbs were covered with a brown hairy coat looking like wool and several centimeters long. The other parts of the body were also covered with hair, but less abundantly. This individual had a son of three, Theodore, who was hairy like himself.

A family living in Burmah (Shive-Maon, whose history is told by Crawford and Yule), consisting of a father, a daughter, and a granddaughter, were nearly covered with hair. Figure 84 represents a somewhat similar family who were exhibited in this country.

Teresa Gambardella, a young girl of twelve, mentioned by Lombroso, was covered all over the body, with the exception of the hands and feet, by thick, bushy hair. This hypertrichosis was exemplified in this country only a few months since by a person who went the rounds of the dime museums under the euphonious name of "Jo-Jo, the dog-face boy." His face was truly that of a skye-terrier.

Sometimes the hairy anomalies are but instances of naevus pilosus. The Indian ourang-outang woman examined at the office of the Lancet was an example of this kind. Hebra, Hildebrandt, Jablokoff, and Klein describe similar cases. Many of the older "wild men" were individuals bearing extensive hairy moles.

Rayer remarks that he has seen a young man of sixteen who exhibited himself to the public under the name of a new species of wild man whose breast and back were covered with light brown hair of considerable length.

The surface upon which it grew was of a brownish hue, different from the color of the surrounding integument. Almost the whole of the right arm was covered in the same manner. On the lower extremity several tufts of hair were observed implanted upon brown spots from seven to eight lines in diameter symmetrically disposed upon both legs. The hair was brown, of the same color as that of the head. Bichat informs us that he saw at Paris an unfortunate man who from his birth was afflicted with a hairy covering of his face like that of a wild boar, and he adds that the stories which were current among the vulgar of individuals with a boar's head, wolf's head, etc., undoubtedly referred to cases in which the face was covered to a greater or less degree with hair. Villerme saw a child of six at Poitiers in 1808 whose body, except the feet and hands, was covered with a great number of prominent brown spots of different dimensions, beset with hair shorter
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