Merrick, Joseph (1862-1890), was a heavily deformed man who became famous as a curiosity billed as the Elephant Man. His life experiences helped to inspire better care and increased acceptance for individuals with physical disfigurement or deformity. Merrick’s life story became the basis of several books, plays, and a motion picture.
Joseph Carey Merrick was born on Aug. 5, 1862, in Leicester , England. As an infant, he suffered from swellings on his lips and face, and his skin had a dull gray pallor (paleness). According to various accounts, his condition was attributed to his mother having suffered a fright from a circus elephant while pregnant. After about age five, Merrick began to develop larger growths of skin and bone on his face, forehead, and body, particularly his right torso, arm, and hand. The abnormal growths continued to grow, severely disfiguring his face and head. In 1873, Merrick’s mother died, and his father remarried, leaving him to fend for himself in Leicester workhouses. By 1884, Merrick obtained work as an exhibit in a traveling sideshow. He was displayed as the Elephant Man to crowds who reacted with horror at his grotesque appearance.
In 1886, Merrick arrived at London Hospital in the impoverished Whitechapel district, having been beaten, robbed, and abandoned. He was treated by Frederick Treves, a local surgeon. Treves helped to relieve Merrick’s suffering while studying his peculiar condition. The growths on Merrick’s head and body had become so large that he had difficulty walking and speaking, and he could only sleep sitting upright. Through their many conversations, Treves found Merrick to be a remarkably intelligent and sensitive person. Treves began a campaign to raise funds to house and care for Merrick at the hospital. The campaign gained popular support, and Merrick became a minor celebrity. He received many notable visitors who helped raise awareness and increase compassion for people with disfiguring conditions.
Merrick died on Apr. 11, 1890, suffocating, or dislocating his neck from the weight of his own head as he tried to lie down to sleep. Treves had plaster casts made of Merrick’s body and removed his skeleton to preserve it as an anatomical specimen. Merrick’s skeleton is kept at the Royal London Hospital, where a replica is on public display.
Physicians long thought that Merrick’s disfigurement was caused by a hereditary disorder called neurofibromatosis . In this incurable condition, numerous tumors develop beneath the surface of the skin, producing small to large skin growths. Most medical experts now believe he suffered from an extremely rare condition called Proteus syndrome. This hereditary disorder causes skin, bone, and other body tissues to grow uncontrollably out of proportion to other parts of the body.
