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I have just heard that modern human marvel Ben Underwood, featured here for his amazing echolocation talent, passed away on January 19, 2009 at age of 16. He was taken by the same cancer that claimed his sight and leaves behind a legacy of inspiration few will ever match.
I offer my sincerest condolences to his family and friends.
In life Elmer McCurdy wasn’t anything special. Elmer wasn’t really unique or extraordinary. It was only following his demise that Elmer amounted to much of anything, when his corpse became famous and the stuff of urban legends.
Skin tone is often a hot social topic. The conversations surrounding the perceived rights of ‘visible minorities’ has long been a heated one. However, what if your skin color placed you in a tiny minority? A tiny and very blue visible minority.
The most famous of the blue people were the Fugates family. The blue Fugates [...]
Over one thousand years before Homer, there exists a written account by Egyptian Pepy II of the 6th dynasty in which he urges one of his generals to look after a pygmy discovered on an expedition to the south. Furthermore, Amenemope at the end of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. set down laws to protect those [...]
In the 17th century the French physician Patin described the case of a local woman who had ‘turned to wood’. This ‘wood’ was actually bone and the woman possessed an incredibly rare condition that caused her muscles to be slowly turned to bone.
Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva or FOP, as the condition is know by today, affects [...]
Few Human Marvels can ever compare to the unusual case of Count Orloff. He was a human oddity sometimes incorrectly billed as ossified, and correctly touted as being transparent.
Ivannow Wladislaus von Dziarski-Orloff was born in Hungary in 1864. While he was completely normal during his childhood, at the age of 14 he began to experience [...]
Perhaps most well know under the name ‘The French Angel’, Maurice Tillet was born in France in 1903 as a completely average and healthy child. He aspired to become an actor and was highly intelligent, allegedly speaking 14 languages and being quite gifted in prose. However, in his twenties, Maurice developed acromegaly.
Acromegaly is a rather [...]
Smithsonian Magazine features a wonderful article this month on the ‘Tin Noses Shop’ of London. The London General Hospital’s Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department, founded by sculptor Francis Derwent Wood, created astounding prosthetic faces for the wounded soldiers of World War I.
The prosthetic masks were actually fashioned of galvanized and lightweight copper and weighed as [...]
J. Tithonus Pednaud herein presents for your edification and enlightenment a curious collection of human marvels. These portent and exceptionally unique human beings stand as uplifting testaments to human spirit and serve as inspiring examples of human tenacity.
