There was a proverb in
Marseilles, "Apas mai de sen que Borghini," meaning in the local
dialect, "Thou hast no more wit than Borghini." This man, whose
fame became known all over France, was not able, as he grew
older, to maintain the weight of his head, but carried a cushion
on each shoulder to prop it up. Fournier also quotes the history
of a man who died in the same city in 1807 at the age of
sixty-seven. His head was enormous, and he never lay on a bed for
thirty years, passing his nights in a chair, generally reading or
writing. He only ate once in twenty-four or thirty hours, never
warmed himself, and never used warm water. His knowledge was said
to have been great and encyclopedic, and he pretended never to
have heard the proverb of Borghini. There is related the account
of a Moor, who was seen in Tunis early in this century,
thirty-one years of age, of middle height, with a head so
prodigious in dimensions that crowds flocked after him in the
streets. His nose was quite long, and his mouth so large that he
could eat a melon as others would an apple. He was an imbecile.
William Thomas Andrews was a dwarf seventeen years old, whose
head measured in circumference 35 inches; from one external
auditory meatus to another, 27 1/4 inches; from the chin over the
cranial summit to the suboccipital protuberance, 37 1/2 inches;
the distance from the chin to the pubes was 20 inches; and from
the pubes to the soles of the feet, 16; he was a monorchid.
Pages:
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487