This man's
body, except the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of
the feet, was covered with small excrescences in the form of
prickles. These appendages were of a reddish-brown color, and so
hard and elastic that they rustled and made a noise when the hand
was passed over their surfaces. They appeared two months after
birth and fell off every winter, to reappear each summer. In
other respects the man was in very good health. He had six
children, all of whom were covered with excrescences like
himself. The hands of one of these children has been represented
by Edwards in his "Gleanings of Natural History." A picture of
the hand of the father is shown in the fifty-ninth volume of the
Philosophical Transactions.
Pettigrew mentions a man with warty elongations encasing his
whole body. At the parts where friction occurred the points of
the elongations were worn off. This man was called "the biped
armadillo." His great grandfather was found by a whaler in a wild
state in Davis's Straits, and for four generations the male
members of the family had been so encased. The females had normal
skins. All the members of the well-known family of Lambert had
the body covered with spines. Two members, brothers, aged
twenty-two and fourteen, were examined by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire.
Pages:
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643