The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1896-03-06

More Wonderful Than Amy in
Dime Museums.
a Girl With n Head no Bigger
Than q Fist.

mover been on exhibition, have never
even been heard Of by tho vast ma
iority Of readers Such curiosity
was discovered in 1883 in Vienm,
Austria, in tho person Of girl who,
although only seventeen years old,
has remained an infant in every re-
spoct, except as TO her age. Her head
is hardly as big as n fist, while her
legs fail TO support her body. The
miserable being often sleeps for forty
eight hours without interruption.
During her waking hours her solo
occupation consists in putting out her
tongue and feebly moving her hands
and feet to and fro. She still occupies
the same cradle in which she was laid
at her birth. Tho doctors consider
her phenomenal specimen Of micro
cephalus or "small head, and predict
that she will live to a very old age.
A few years ago a tourist passing
through Piedmont happened TO see a
girl of about IS years old, Of fine fig
ure, but with head whose resemblance
to a hounds head was uumistakable.
It is said that until her tenth year she
habitually went on all fours. Her
father and mother had been tho hand
soonest pair far and wide Although
in redaced circumstances, the mother
had steadfastly refused most tempting
offers to place her offspring on exhibit
ton.
If the deliclcy shown by this Pied
mont mother were common in such
cases, the ancient Romans would not
have maintained a special market for
the sale aud purchase of human Gu
rios. But cupidity being no re-
spector Of misfortune in any form,
the fame of that market brought there
three freaks not equaled since-a man,
the top of whose head tapered to a
point, and who had three eyes IA boy
weighing 10 pounds and possessing
what the historian is pleased to call
"voice of thunder, " and in the days
of Nero a child with four heads.
A lady with horses head resided
at Vienna during the early part Of
the century. In 1929 mountebank
named Stephenson exhibited man
with a hogs head To his sorrow
somebody discovered that this freak
was in fact lose-shayed bear which
the ingenious inventor caused to grunt
and to cut grimaces by pricking him
with needle.
Some years ago Professor Berg
mann, Of Berlin, received a strange
visitor--a child whose right hand was
attached directly to the shoulder,
there being no vestige of an arm. The
parents of the cripple innocently re
quested the learned professor to sup
ply the missing arm.
The Faench doctor Demarouay re.
cords ffty-nIne well attested cases O
horned people, generally women.
Jules Cloquet mentions a woman who
had on her head an excrescence ovel
five inches long, and Bartholin saw
another over six inches long.
In the hospital at Hyeres can still
be seen piece of the scalp of a won
an to which is attached an excres
cence over ten inches long, resem
bling a rams horn it is about tw
and half inches thick, twisted spi
rally and ornamented with daint
stripes The lady was forty years oil
when the horn first made its appear
! ance in four years it reacheda lengt
of eight inches The singular "ornG
ment" was completely hidden unde
the luxuriant hair and caused no pal
or inconvenience during the day. A
night, however, the poor woman wa
constrained to lie uncomrortably
since the slightest accidental pressur
5 against the horn caused intense su
fering. Hence she decided to subm
! to have it removed and the operatio
was performed successfully, but ne
1 protuberance at once put in its a.
: peorauce, and if the woman isn't deo
: it is probably growing still.
During his last expedition throue
South America, the Argentinian Ca
. tain Albornog saw au Indian fro
L.