Neither the births,
her travels, nor her poverty, which sometimes forced her to beg
at church doors, arrested the progress of the obesity. At the age
of forty she was 5 feet 1 inch high and one inch greater about
the waist. Her head was small and her neck was entirely
obliterated. Her breasts were over a yard in circumference and
hung as low as the umbilicus. Her arms were elevated and kept
from her body by the fat in her axillae. Her belly was enormous
and was augmented by six pregnancies. Her thighs and haunches
were in proportion to her general contour. At forty she ceased to
menstruate and soon became afflicted with organic heart diseases
Fournier quotes an instance of a woman in Paris who at
twenty-four, the time of her death, weighed 486 pounds. Not being
able to mount any conveyance or carriage in the city, she walked
from place to place, finding difficulty not in progression, but
in keeping her equilibrium. Roger Byrne, who lived in Rosenalis,
Queen's County, Ireland, died of excessive fatness at the age of
fifty-four, weighing 52 stone. Percy and Laurent speak of a young
German of twenty who weighed 450 pounds. At birth he weighed 13
pounds, at six months 42, and at four years 150 pounds.
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