In 1712 in a village in Holland there died a fisherman
named Gerrit Bastiaansen who was 8 feet high and weighed 500
pounds. During Queen Anne's reign there was shown in London and
other parts of England a most peculiar anomaly--a German giantess
without hands or feet who threaded a needle, cut gloves, etc.
About 1821 there was issued an engraving of Miss Angelina Melius,
nineteen years of age and 7 feet high, attended by her page,
Senor Don Santiago de los Santos, from the Island of Manilla,
thirty-live years old and 2 feet 2 inches high. "The Annual
Register" records the death of Peter Tuchan at Posen on June 18,
1825, of dropsy of the chest. He was twenty-nine years old and 8
feet 7 inches in height; he began to grow at the age of seven.
This monster had no beard; his voice was soft; he was a moderate
eater. There was a giant exhibited in St. Petersburg, June, 1829,
8 feet 8 inches in height, who was very thin and emaciated.
Dr. Adam Clarke, who died in 1832, measured a man 8 feet 6 inches
tall. Frank Buckland, in his "Curiosities of Natural History,"
says that Brice, the French giant, was 7 feet 7 inches. Early in
1837 there was exhibited at Parma a young man formerly in the
service of the King of the Netherlands who was 8 feet 10 inches
high and weighed 401 pounds.
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