The Elephant Man
Wednesday November 28, 2007 8:35 AM
You may not think you've heard of Joseph Merrick, but you almost certainly know him by his stage name. In the late nineteenth century, Merrick spent a small portion of his life as a sideshow attraction by the name of Elephant Man.
The Elephant Man's affliction — neurofibromatosis or perhaps Proteus syndrome, characterized by extreme deformities of the head and body — befell him at an early age. Abandoned by his father and stepmother, he was forced to live in workhouses and sell shoe polish on the street until he joined the sideshow circuit. Under the care of showman Tom Norman, Merrick received the medical care he needed and was even able to save a little money. His comfort was short-lived, however, as he was soon separated from Norman. After Merrick was found in a Liverpool train station destitute and barely able to speak, he was taken to a London hospital, where he would live for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 27 while attempting to sleep on his back; his neck could not support the weight of his oversize head.
In an excerpt from the autobiography on Merrick's sideshow pamphlet, he explains his condition thusly:
The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity.
Obviously this is untrue, but it's not clear whether Merrick wrote this because it was what he believed or because it was what Norman told him to write. Circus sideshows were popular in the late nineteenth century, both in Europe and in the United States, and it was quite common for sideshow workers with physical deformities to have their conditions explained to the audience in bizarre and unbelievable ways. Schlitzie the Pinhead had microcephaly, but the sideshows advertised him as one of the last living members of an Aztec race, or as a being from another planet. Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy's hypertrichosis was explained as the result of a tryst his mother had with a bear. The Alligator Boy was in fact afflicted with ichthyosis.
Poor Joseph Merrick lived during an era when entertainment came in the form of debilitating diseases that had yet to be identified. Even when these diseases were identified, they were never mentioned under the big top; to gawk at a tiny-headed man from another planet was less guilt-inducing than to stare at someone with an unfortunate neurological disorder.
