posted on Jan, 17 2008 @ 03:20 AM
I'm pretty sure most people have heard about him. But if you haven't you'll be kinda freaked out by how strange he looked.
For the people who don't know, the elephant man was the name given to a severely deformed man from the victorian age whos name was Joseph Carey
Merrick. Because of his appearance he earned a living as a sideshow freak attraction where he got paid pretty well.
Sir Frederick Treves was the name of the doctor who found Jospeh displayed in a window at a closed shop where he later confronted Joseph's manager or
owner or whatever he was, and persuayed him to let him take Jospeh to the hospital where he got his own room at the bottom of the hospital where he
was taken care of and kindly treated by the staff. Queen Victoria and a lot of other important people during that time took interest in Joseph.
The cause of his death was probably suffocation. But I read somewhere else that it was his neck bone that got broken. Since he had such a big head, he
had to sleep sitting up while resting his head on his arms. But one night he attempted to sleep like a normal person, and because his head was too
heavy, he either suffocated or broke his neck.
Sad story, I know;'( If anyone is interested, there's a really good movie about him based on Sir Frederick Treves book called The Elephant
Reminiscenes or something. The name of the movie is obviously called The Elephant Man. Sir Frederick Treves is played by Anthony Hopkins and
Joseph/John Merrick is played by John Hurt.
I don't know about you, but he has to be the most screwed up human being the world has ever seen. Seriously. I don't think there is any deformed
human being in the world that can top him.
Like Sir Frederick Treves wrote in his book (not 100% right) "Never have I seen such a perverted and degraded version of a human being";D