Red Army snipers
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World War 2 Best Sniper : Simo Häyhä
Simo Häyhä (December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002), nicknamed "White Death" by the Soviet army, was a Finnish soldier. Using a standard iron-sighted, bolt action rifle in the Winter War, he had the highest recorded number of kills as a sniper in any major war.
Häyhä was born in the municipality of Rautjärvi near the present-day border of Finland and Russia, and started his military service in 1925. Before entering combat, Häyhä was a farmer and a hunter. His farmhouse was reportedly full of trophies for marksmanship. It was during the Winter War (1939–1940), between Finland and the Soviet Union, that he began his duty as a sniper and fought the Red Army.
In temperatures between −20 and −40 degrees Celsius (−4 and −40 degrees Fahrenheit), dressed completely in a white camouflage suit, Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers, and 542 if including the unconfirmed deaths. The unofficial Finnish frontline figure from the battlefield of Kollaa places the number of Häyhä's sniper kills over 800. A daily account of the kills at Kollaa was conducted for the Finnish snipers. Besides his sniper kills, Häyhä was also credited with over two hundred kills with a Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, thus bringing his credited kills to at least 705. All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in less than 100 days.
Simo had been issued a Swedish Model 96 Mauser equipped with a telescopic sight, although he soon replaced it with an M28-30. There were many reasons he liked the M28-30 over the scoped Mauser. One was that it was more suited to his size. (He said that the scoped rifle forced him to raise his head a bit more than he liked). Finally, iron sights were not prone to breaking or fogging.
Häyhä used a Finnish variant, M/28, of the Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle (known as "Pystykorva" rifle, meaning "spitz"), because it suited his small frame (5 ft 3 in/1.60 m). He preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target (the sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to prevent visibility risks (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily), and aid concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). Another tactic used by Häyhä was to compact the snow in front of him so that the shot wouldn't disturb the snow, thus revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so that when breathing he wouldn't reveal his position.
He also used the Suomi K31 SMG.
The Konepistooli Model 31, better known as the Suomi submachine gun, was developed by Aimo Lathi and became the most famous weapon of the Winter War. It was built from machined steel and sported a wooden, pistol-grip stock; ventilated barrel jacket; muzzlebrake; and sights adjustable up to 500 meters. Chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, it was a selective-fire weapon and was most commonly used with a 71-round drum.
The Soviets tried several ploys to get rid of him, including counter snipers and artillery strikes. On March 6, 1940, Simo fell afoul of a Soviet sniper who got off the first shot and hit him in the face. Simo retrieved his rifle and killed the Russian before making his way back to his own lines. The bullet tumbled upon impact and left his head. He was picked up by fellow soldiers who said "half his head was missing".As he was taken to a field hospital in a truck, he forced himself to sit upright and hold his head down so he wouldn't drown in his own blood.
He regained consciousness on March 13, the day peace was declared. On August 28, 1940, , Häyhä was promoted straight from corporal to second lieutenant by Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. No one else has ever gained rank in such a quick fashion in Finland's military history.
After the war, he received the Kollaa Cross, Liberty Medal 1st and 2nd Class and Liberty Cross 3rd and 4th Class.
It took several years for Häyhä to recuperate from his wound. The bullet had crushed his jaw and blown off his left cheek. Nonetheless, he made a full recovery and became a successful moose hunter and dog breeder after World War II.
When asked in 1998 how he had become such a good shot, he answered, "Practice." When asked if he regretted killing so many people, he has said "I did what I was told to as well as I could." Simo Häyhä spent his last years in a small village called Ruokolahti located in the south-east of Finland near the Russian border.
Snipers List of all snipers in major conflicts : Snipers Central
Source : Wikipedia
542 Kills Confirmed
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Priest Bérenger Saunière
François Bérenger Saunière (1852-1917) was a priest in the French village of Rennes-le-Château, in the Aude region, officially from 1885 to 1909 (when he was transferred to another village by his bishop, that he declined and subsequently resigned) and after 1909, until his death in 1917, in the role of Free Priest (a priest working independently without a parish). The epitaph on Saunière's original 1917 gravestone read that he was 'priest of Rennes-le-Château 1885-1917'. From 1909 Bérenger Saunière held masses in an altar constructed in his Villa Bethanie.
He would be unknown today if not for the fact that he is a central figure in many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Rennes-le-Château. These speculations form the basis of several pseudohistorical documentaries and books such as the 1982 Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, although few, if any, historians subscribe to them. Many elements of these theories were later used by Dan Brown in his best-selling 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code.
François Bérenger Saunière was born on April 11, 1852 in Montazels, in the Arrondissement of Limoux of the Aude region. He was the eldest of seven children, having three brothers (Alfred, Martial, and Joseph) and three sisters (Mathilde, Adeline, and Marie-Louise). He was the son of Marguerite Hugues and Joseph Saunière (1823-1906), also called "cubié", who was the mayor of Montazels (Aude), managed the local flour mill, and was the steward of Marquis de Cazermajou's castle. Alfred became a priest; Joseph wanted to be a physician but died at 25. Bérenger, for his part, was an athlete and regarded as insolent, independent and fundamentalist, and routinely rebelled against hierarchy.
He went to school at St. Louis in Limoux, entered the seminary in Carcassonne in 1874, and was ordained as a priest in June, 1879. From July 16, 1879 until 1882, he was a vicar in another local village, Alet. From June 1882 to 1885, he was a priest in the deanery of the small village of Clat. He was a teacher in the seminary in Narbonne but, because he was undisciplined, he was appointed to another small village of approximately 300 inhabitants, Rennes-le-Château, on June 1, 1885. He was anti-republican and he had to leave the diocese from December 1, 1885 to July 1886, to give lessons once more in the seminary of Narbonne. As the villagers wanted him to come back, the prefect changed his mind and called him back. In May 1890, he also said mass in Antugnac on Sundays.
Claims that Bérenger Saunière had an ambiguous relationship with his maidservant, Marie Denarnaud, cannot be justified and are the product of myth and legend. Quoting Saunière's principles on which he dealt with his maidservant, Marie Denarnaud:
Respect, but not familiarity. Not to permit her to talk about matters of his ministry. What you say to a servant should not be able to be said to other women. She must avoid excesses of language, and he must not trust in her age or her piety too easily. She is not to enter the bedroom when he is in bed, except in case of illnesses.
The presbytery was one of several building projects Saunière launched around the village. He renovated the interior and exterior of the local church, built a grand estate (the Villa Bethania) for himself, a promenade along the end of the village, and a tower on a local hill - a personal library called the 'Tour Magdala' which resembles the Tower of David in Jerusalem, called the 'Migdal David'.
In 1896, according to a report held in Carcassonne Bishopric, an investigation was started by the bishopric into how he had been able to fund the various building projects, as his salary did not meet the expenses. Saunière, who at age 50 had a glass eye, and was known to often play the lottery (loterie de la maison des artistes), refused to co-operate with the enquiry. The bishopric relocated him to a different parish, but Saunière refused and resigned on February 1, 1909. He was tried for trafficking in masses in 1910.He lived the rest of his life penniless, selling religious medals and rosaries to wounded soldiers who were stationed in Campagne les Bains. There were also accusations that he was taking in German spies.
Saunière had a heart attack on January 17, 1917, and died on January 22.
In September 2004, the mayor of Rennes-le-Château exhumed Saunière's corpse from the church graveyard and reburied it in a concrete sarcophagus to protect it from grave-robbers.
One of the protagonists of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code is called Jacques Saunière, named after Bérenger Saunière.
Supporters of the various conspiracy theories of Rennes-le-Château believe that while renovating his parish church in 1891, Saunière found ancient documents relating to a great historical secret. These theories allege that, through his possession of these documents, Saunière was somehow able to obtain much more wealth than would be expected of a parish priest. The documents were allegedly discovered in a "hollow visigothic pillar" according to the book Le Trésor Maudit by Gerard de Sede.
Following Saunière's death in 1917 a mystique developed about the priest's source of wealth. There was a theory that he was paid vast sums of money by the Catholic Church to buy his silence on a secret that would have seriously undermined the church's power: the most extraordinary claim being that he had discovered the grave in which Christ had been buried, implying that Christ had not ascended to heaven
Saunière's source of wealth is of petty church scandal: "The source of the wealth of the priest of Rennes-le-Château was not some ancient mysterious treasure, but good old fashioned fraud."
According to canon law, priests were allowed to say up to three masses per day and to accept a fee for requested prayers for the dead. Saunière, however, had been soliciting and accepting money via the post to say thousands of masses, charging one franc per mass. Some clients would send payment for hundreds of masses, which he never actually performed. In 1906, he was summoned before the Bishop's Court in Carcassonne, where the bishopric ordered Saunière to stop advertising for masses, an order which Saunière strained every effort not to obey.
Saunière's account books, detailing how much money he was receiving from the selling of masses that he could not actually perform, run into thousands of pages.
Timeline of the events at Rennes le Chateau
More on Rennes Le Chateau : Rennes le Chateau Research
Source : Wikipedia
Priest Bérenger Saunière
The Green Children of Woolpit
The green children of Woolpit reportedly appeared in the village of Woolpit in Suffolk, England, in the 12th century, during the reign of King Stephen. The first two accounts, written around fifty/sixty years after the time the event is said to have occurred, are 'Historia Rerum Anglicarum' by William of Newburgh, and 'Chronicon Aglicanum' by Ralph of Coggeshall Abbey.
Between that time and their rediscovery in the mid-19th century, the green children seem to surface only in Bishop Francis Godwin's fantastical The Man in the Moone, where William of Newburgh's account is reported.
The children, brother and sister, were of generally normal appearance except for the green colour of their skin. They spoke in a strange language, and initially the only food they would eat was green beans. The boy soon died, but the girl learned to eat other food and eventually lost her green colour. She adjusted to her new life and was baptised, although considered "rather loose and wanton in her conduct". When she learned to speak English the girl explained that she and her brother had come from St Martin's Land, an underground world whose inhabitants were green. She became a domestic servant in the household of a local knight from whom Ralph of Coggeshall, himself a local man, learned the story directly.
In the year 1200, William of Newburgh (a monastery in Yorkshire) took up his quill and began to record the various events which had occurred in the reign of King Stephen which lasted from 1135 to 1154. William was not given to flights of fancy, and was renowned for not embroidering events, so many historians today are intrigued by the monk's following account of a strange event which allegedly took place in the Suffolk village of Woolpit, which lies near Bury St Edmunds:
I must not there omit a marvel, a prodigy unheard of since the beginning of all time, which is known to have come to pass under King Stephen. I myself long hesitated to credit it, although it was noised abroad by many folk, and I thought it ridiculous to accept a thing which had no reason to commend it, or at most some reason of great obscurity, until I was so overwhelmed with the weight of so many and such credible witnesses that I was compelled to believe and admire that which my wit striveth vainly to reach or follow. There is a village in England some four or five miles from the noble monastery of the Blessed King and Martyr Edmund, near which may be seen certain trenches of immemorial antiquity which are named in the English tongue, Wolfpittes, and which gave their name to the adjacent village. One harvest-tide, when harvesters were gathering in the corn, there crept out from these two pits a boy and a girl, green at every point of their body, and clad in garments of strange hue and unknown texture. These wandered distraught about the field, until the harvesters took them and brought them to the village, where many flocked together to see this marvel.
Had William of Newburgh's account been the only report of the bizarre incident, it would have been interpreted as an out-of-character fairy tale penned by a monk who had perhaps imbibed too much mead, but Abbott Ralph of Coggeshall - another monastic scribe who was a contemporary of William living just 30 miles south of Woolpit in Essex, also recorded the appearance of the green children. He wrote of them:
No one could understand their speech. When they were brought as curiosities to the house of a certain knight, Sir Richard de Calne, at Wikes, they wept bitterly. Bread and other victuals were set before them, but they would touch none of them, though they were tormented by great hunger, as the girl afterwards acknowledged. At length, when some [broad] beans just cut, with their stalks, were brought into the house, they made signs, with great avidity, that they should be given to them. When they were brought, they opened the stalks instead of the pods, thinking the beans were in the hollow of them; but not finding them there, they began to weep anew. When those who were present saw this, they opened the pods and showed them the naked beans. They fed on these with great delight, and for a long time tasted no other food. The boy, however, was always languid and depressed, he died within a short time. The girl enjoyed continual good health; and becoming accustomed to various kinds of food, lost completely her green colour, and gradually recovered the sanguine habit of her entire body.
Abbot Ralph goes on to say that the green girl was later baptised into the Christian faith and lived for many years in the service of Sir Richard, the knight who took her into his care.
Despite her baptism. The Abbot also mentions that the green girl was 'rather loose and wanton in her conduct.' All the same, the girl married a man from King Lynn and settled down there with him, according to William of Newburgh. The curious continually quizzed the mysterious young woman about her origins. She always told them that she and her brother had come from a country that was entirely green that was inhabited by green-skinned people. Even their sun, which was very feeble, glowed green. One day the girl and her brother entered a cavern when they were startled to hear a strange sound. Abbot Ralph wrote of this:
On entering the cave they heard a delightful sound of bells; ravished by whose sweetness, they went for a long time wandering on through the cavern, until they came from its mouth. When they came out of it, they were struck senseless by the excessive light of the sun, and the unusual temperature of the air; and they thus lay for a long time. Being terrified by the noise of those who came on them, they wished to flee, but they could not find the entrance of the cavern before they were caught.
People naturally assumed that the children had come from some unknown land beneath the ground, for how else could they have emerged from a cave? Some thinkers of the time also surmised that the children's skin had a greenish hue because of lack of sunlight. The superstitious believed that the green kids were some sort of sinister cousins of the elves and fairies who were also said to be green-skinned. Green had always been synonymous with the supernatural; the enigmatic Green Man of English folklore and the ominous Green Knight of Arthurian legend are just two examples. The green children's predilection for broad beans was interpreted by the irrational folk of the period as another indication of the youngsters real eerie nature, because beans were said to be the food of the dead, and it was thought that ghosts and other spirits dwelt in bean fields.
People naturally assumed that the children had come from some unknown land beneath the ground, for how else could they have emerged from a cave? Some thinkers of the time also surmised that the children's skin had a greenish hue because of lack of sunlight. The superstitious believed that the green kids were some sort of sinister cousins of the elves and fairies who were also said to be green-skinned. Green had always been synonymous with the supernatural; the enigmatic Green Man of English folklore and the ominous Green Knight of Arthurian legend are just two examples. The green children's predilection for broad beans was interpreted by the irrational folk of the period as another indication of the youngsters real eerie nature, because beans were said to be the food of the dead, and it was thought that ghosts and other spirits dwelt in bean fields.
One modern theory has it that the mysterious St Martin's Land was the nearby village of Fornham St Martin, about 8 miles (13 km), away, further than many 12th-century villagers would have travelled. The children's accent or dialect may have been sufficiently different as to be unrecognisable, but as there is a common market at Bury St Edmunds, and any reasonable route from Fornham St. Martin to Woolpit is likely to have passed through Bury St Edmunds, this explanation seems unlikely.
Another explanation, put forward by Paul Harris in 1998,[citation needed] is that they were possibly Flemish children whose parents had been killed in a period of civil strife. Eastern England had experienced Flemish immigration during the 12th century, but after Henry II became king, the immigrants were persecuted. In 1173 many were killed near Bury St Edmunds not far from the Fornham villages. He also suggests the children may have been from the village of Fornham St. Martin where a settlement of Flemish fullers who would have access to a wide variety of dyes existed at the time in question. The children may have fled from their village and ultimately wandered to Woolpit. Disoriented, bewildered and dressed in unfamiliar Flemish costumes, they would certainly have presented a very strange spectacle to the Woolpit villagers. This explanation has its complications, as well. Henry II was expelling Flemish mercenaries, not the merchants and weavers who had lived in England for generations, and few wives followed war, along with their children (although not unheard of). Also, Richard de Calne likely fought against the mercenaries, either as a landowner expelling small groups of raiders or as part of his duty to the crown. It is fairly reasonable to assume that even if he did not know Flemish, he would have figured the possibility of the children being Flemish.
The children's colour could be explained by green sickness, the name once given to anaemia caused by dietary deficiency. Given the possible Flemish origin of the children, a green dye to help camouflage them during a time when Flemings were particularly unpopular seems just as likely.
Greenness of the skin in children and adults has been recorded, and the cause is usually an endocrine gland disorder or a type of secondary anaemia. The possiblilty of such diseases and disorders occurring in two children at the same time are astronomical. The only credible possibilities seem to be the extraterrestrial origin.
Rodney Davies also describes the children's clothing as "dress-like", and says Richard de Calne lived in a nearby town called Wikes, which is where the children were taken.
Harold Wilkins in 'Strange Mysteries of Time and Space' implies that the name "Martin's Land" may be a mis-representation of the name "Merlin's Land", but he is the only source for this alternative name.
Katharine Briggs in 'The Fairies' says the Green Girl claimed to have come from an underground country.
For those of you who master latin here's the original text by Ralph of Coggeshall, as reprinted in Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages, 1857 London, no. 66, pg. 118-120:
"De quodam puero st puella de terra emergentibus.
"Aliud quoque mirum priori non dissimile in Suthfolke contigit apud Sanctam Mariam de Wulpetes. Inventus est puer quidam cum sorore sua ab accolis loci illius juxta oram cujusdam foveµ quµ ibidem continetur, qui formam omnium membrorum cµteris hominibus similem habebant, sed in colore cutis ab omnibus mortalibus nostrµ habitabilis discrepabant. Nam tota superficies cutis eorum viridi colore tingebatur. Loquelam eorum nullus intelligere potuit. Hi igitur ad domum domini Ricardi de Calne cujusdam militis, adducti prµ admiratione, apud Wikes, inconsolabiliter flebant. Panis ac cµtera cibaria eis apposita sunt, sed nullis escis quµ eis apponebantur vesci volebant, cum utique maxima famis inedia diutius cruciarentur, quia omnia hujusmodi cibaria incomestibilia esse credebant, sicut puella postmodum confessa est. Tandem cum fabµ noviter cum stipitibus abscissµ in domo asportarentur, cum maxima aviditate innuerunt ut de fabis illis sibi daretur. Quµ coram eis allatµ, stipites aperiunt, non fabarum folliculos, putantes in concavitate stipitum fabas contineri. Sed fabis in stipitibus non inventis, iterum flere c£perunt. Quod ubi astantes animadverterunt, folliculos aperiunt, fabas nudas ostendunt, ostensis cum magna hilaritate vescuntur, nulla alia cibaria ex multo tempore penitus contingentes. Puer vero semper quasi languore depressus infra breve tempus moritur. Puella vero sospitate continua perfruens, ac cibariis quibuslibet assuefacta, illum prassinum colorem penitus amisit, atque sanguineam habitudinem totius corporis paulatim recuperavit. Quµ postmodum sacri baptismatis lavacro regenerata, ac per multos annos in ministerio prµdicti militis, (sicut ab eodem milite et ejus familia frequenter audivimus,) commorata, nimium lasciva et petulans exstitit. Interrogata vero frequenter de hominibus suµ regionis, asserebat quod omnes habitatores et omnia quµ in regione illa habebantur viridi tingerentur colore, et quod nullum solem cernebant, sed quadam claritate fruebantur, sicut post solis occasum contingit. Interrogata autem quomodo in hanc terram devenisset cum puero prµdicto, respondit, quia cum pecora sequerentur, devenerunt in quandam cavernam. Quam ingressi, audierunt quendam delectabilem sonum campanarum; cujus soni dulcedine capti per cavernam diutius errando incedebant, donec ad exitum illius devenirent. Qui inde emergentes, nimia claritate solis et insolita aeris temperie, quasi attoniti et exanimes effecti, diu super oram speluncµ jacuerunt. Cumque a supervenientium inquietudine terrerentur, diffugere voluerunt, sed introitum speluncµ minime reperire potuerunt, donec ab eis comprehenderentur."
More on the green children of Woolpit : Anomaly Info
Source : Wikipedia
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Sirenomelia or Mermaid Syndrome
Sirenomelia, alternatively known as mermaid syndrome is a very rare congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together, giving the appearance of a mermaid's tail.
This condition is found in approximately one out of every 100,000 live births (about as rare as conjoined twins) and is usually fatal within a day or two of birth because of complications associated with abnormal kidney and bladder development and function. It results from a failure of normal vascular supply from the lower aorta in utero. Maternal diabetes has been associated with caudal regression syndrome and sirenomelia, although this association is not generally accepted.
VACTERL-H is an expanded form of the VACTERL association that concludes that this diagnosis is a less severe form of sirenomelia. The disorder was formerly thought to be an extreme case of Caudal regression syndrome; however, it was reclassified to be considered a separate condition.
Only a handful of patients who did not have the usual kidney and bladder complications have survived this condition, three of them being:
Milagros Cerrón
Milagros Cerrón Arauco (born April 27, 2004, in Huancayo, Peru). Although most of Milagros’ internal organs, including her heart and lungs, are in perfect condition, she was born with serious internal defects, including a deformed left kidney and a very small right one located very low in her body. In addition, her digestive, urinary tracts and genitals share a single tube. This birth defect occurs during the gastrulation week (week 3) of embryological development. Gastrulation establishes the three derm layers: ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. It seems that complications such as defects in the urogenital system as mentioned above can be possibly due to malformations in the intermediate mesoderm.
A four-hour operation to insert silicone bags between her legs to stretch the skin was successfully completed on February 8, 2005. A successful operation to separate her legs to just above the knee took place May 31, 2005, in a "Solidarity Hospital" in the district of Surquillo in Lima. The procedure, however, was so intensive that she became traumatized to the degree of losing her ability to form proper speech patterns, leaving her nearly mute. As yet it is not known if this is a physiological or psychological condition. However, at Milagros's second birthday, her mother reported that she knew more than 50 words. A second operation to complete the separation up to the groin took place on September 7, 2006.A few weeks later, she took her first steps.
Her doctor Luis Rubio said he was pleased with the progress Milagros had made, but cautioned that she still needed 10 to 15 years of rehabilitation and more operations before she could lead a normal life. Particularly, she will require reconstructive surgery to rebuild her rudimentary anus, urethra and genitalia.
Milagros' parents are from a poor village in Peru's Andes Mountains; the Solidarity Hospital has given a job to her father Ricardo Cerrón so that the family can remain in Lima, while the City of Lima has pledged to pay for many of the operations.
Tiffany Yorks
Tiffany Yorks of the United States (born May 7, 1988) underwent successful surgery in order to separate her legs. She is the longest-surviving sirenomelia patient to date.
Shiloh Pepin
Shiloh Pepin was born in Kennebunkport, Maine in August, 1999, with her lower extremities fused, a missing bladder, uterus, colon and vagina, with only one partial kidney and one ovary. Her parents initially anticipated she could expect only a few months of life. An initial kidney transplant at 4 months of age, lasted a number of years, and in 2007 a second kidney transplant was successful. She attends Consolidated Elementary School. Shiloh is the only one of the three survivors of sirenomelia without surgery for separation of the conjoined legs.
Shiloh died at ten years old on October 23, 2009, from a pneumonia following a cold and was hospitalized days prior to her death at Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine.
More on Shiloh Pepin : Born With Fused Legs ABC News
Source : Wikipedia
Tiffany Yorks
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Joseph Merrick - "The Elephant Man"
Joseph Carey Merrick (5 August 1862 – 11 April 1890) was an Englishman who became known as "The Elephant Man" because of his physical appearance caused by a congenital disorder. Because of his condition, he would garner the sympathy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the great Victorian era. He has often been incorrectly called John Merrick.
Joseph Merrick was born to Mary Jane Potterton and Joseph Rockley Merrick. Because of an error made by Sir Frederick Treves in his book, The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences, Merrick is sometimes erroneously referred to by the name John Merrick.He was the eldest of three and had a younger brother and sister. In an autobiographical note which appeared on the reverse side of his freak show pamphlet, Merrick mentions that his deformity began developing at the age of three with small bumps appearing on the left side of his body.[3] His mother died when he was 12. According to family accounts, she was physically disabled as well. His father remarried, but his stepmother did not want young Joseph. Obliged to earn a living by selling goods on the street, Merrick was constantly harassed by local children. Unable to bring home a profit and tired of fighting with his stepmother, Merrick left home.
Twice ending up in the Leicester Union workhouse, Merrick was unemployable for most of his life. On 29 August 1884, he took a job as a sideshow performer where he was treated decently and earned a considerable sum of money. At one point during his sideshow career, Merrick was exhibited in the back of an empty shop on Mile End Road in London (now called the London Sari Centre), where he was seen by the physician Frederick Treves (later knighted). As Treves recalled decades later in his memoirs, he gave Merrick one of his business cards in the event that Merrick would be willing to submit to medical examination. The two men then went their separate ways. When sideshows were outlawed in the United Kingdom in 1886, Merrick traveled to Belgium to find work. There, he was mistreated and ultimately abandoned by a showman, who stole Merrick's savings of £50 (worth approximately £3,900 in 2007 currency.
After making his way back to London, Merrick inadvertently caused a disturbance in Liverpool Street train station. Suffering from a severe bronchial infection and hampered by his deformities, Merrick was barely able to speak intelligibly. However, he had kept Treves' business card, and Treves was duly summoned by the authorities. In his role as physician at London Hospital, Treves arranged for Merrick to be given permanent quarters there. Merrick thrived in these circumstances.
Merrick's cap and hoodHe became something of a celebrity in Victorian high society. Alexandra of Denmark, then Princess of Wales and later Queen Consort, developed a kindly interest in Merrick, leading other members of the upper class to embrace him. He eventually became a favorite of Queen Victoria. However, Treves later commented that Merrick always wanted, even after living at the hospital, to go to a hospital for the blind where he might find a woman who would not be repelled by his appearance. In his final years, he found some solace in writing and visiting the countryside.
In the summer of 1887, he spent some weeks at the Fawsley Hall estate, Northamptonshire. Special measures were taken for his journey, and he was forced to travel in a carriage with blinds drawn to avoid attracting attention. He greatly enjoyed his time away from urban London, made many new friends and collected wild flowers to take back with him to London. He visited again in 1888 and 1889. He was cared for at the hospital until his death at the age of 27 on 11 April 1890, apparently from the accidental dislocation of his neck due to its inability to support the weight of his massive head in sleep. Merrick, unable to sleep reclining due to the weight of his head, may have tried to do so in this instance, in an attempt to imitate normal behavior. The coroner at his inquest was Wynne Edwin Baxter, who had come to prominence during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 when he had likewise presided at the inquests of several of the victims.
Merrick's preserved skeleton remains in the pathology collection at the Royal London Hospital. While his remains have never been on public display, there is a small museum focused on his life, which houses some of his personal effects and period Merrick memorabilia.
Joseph Merrick was originally thought to be suffering from elephantiasis. In 1971, Ashley Montagu suggested in his book The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity that Merrick suffered from Neurofibromatosis type I, a genetic disorder also known as von Recklinghausen disease. During 1986 it was postulated that Merrick actually suffered from Proteus syndrome, previously diagnosed by Michael Cohen seven years earlier.[4] Unlike neurofibromatosis, Proteus syndrome, named for the shape-shifting god Proteus, affects tissue other than nerves, and it is a sporadic disorder rather than a genetically transmitted disease.
During June 2001, Paul Spiring had an article published in Biologist in which he proposed a new diagnosis. Spiring suggested that Merrick suffered from combined Neurofibromatosis type 1 and Proteus syndrome.This hypothesis was endorsed by Robert Matthews, a correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph in an article entitled Two Wrongs don't make a right - until someone joins them up. It also formed the basis for a documentary film entitled The Curse of The Elephant Man that was produced for the Discovery Health Channel by Natural History New Zealand Limited (released 21 July 2003).
During 2002, Natural History New Zealand Limited, along with genealogists, put out a BBC appeal to trace the Merrick family line. In response to the appeal, a Leicester resident named Pat Selby was discovered to be the granddaughter of Merrick's uncle. A research team took her DNA samples in order to try to diagnose the condition that caused his deformities. The investigation also discovered that Merrick's sister, Marion Eliza, suffered from myelitis. Marion Eliza died at the age of 23 of severe food poisoning.
During 2003, DNA tests conducted by Dr. Charis Eng on samples of Merrick's hair and bone showed no mutation in the PTEN gene (only present in some Proteus syndrome sufferers). Hence, there is as of yet no physical evidence to support the theory that Merrick suffered from Proteus syndrome.
Merrick's condition greatly affected his social relation and his views of himself:
"Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God.
Could I create myself anew,
I would not fail in pleasing you.
If I could reach from pole to pole,
Or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul,
The mind's the standard of the man."
A poem by Isaac Watts that Joseph Merrick would use to end his letters.
More on Joseph Carey Merrick : Joseph Carey Merrick tribute website
Source : Wikipedia
Shiloh Pepin
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