| Joseph Merrick |
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| accidental deaths | |
| people from leicester | |
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| 1862 births | |
| 1890 deaths | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Joseph Carey Merrick ( 5 August , 1862 – 11 April , 1890 ), known as '''"The Elephant Man"''' gained the sympathy of Victorian Era Britain because of the extreme deformity of his head. Early biographies of Merrick inaccurately give his first name as "John"; an error repeated in many later versions, including the 1980 film '' The Elephant Man '' and in the BBC 2 television programme '' I'm Alan Partridge ''. LIFE Born in Leicester to Mary Jane Merrick and Joseph Rockley Merrick, he had a younger brother and sister. He began showing signs of deformity at age two or five (Sources differ) {Link without Title} . His mother died when he was 11. According to family accounts, she too was "crippled." His father remarried, but his stepmother did not want the younger Joseph. She gave her husband an ultimatum: "Joseph, or me." Joseph was forced to earn a living by selling shoe polish on the street where he would be constantly harassed by local children. For the better part of his life he was unemployable, so as a last resort he took a job as a Sideshow attraction. He was treated decently, and made a small amount of money. However, when sideshows were outlawed in the United Kingdom in 1886 , he travelled to Belgium to find work. There, he was mistreated and abandoned by a showman. After making his way back to London , Merrick had the good fortune of befriending the well-known Victorian doctor, Frederick Treves , who discovered him at Liverpool Street train station suffering from a severe bronchial infection. In his role as physician at London Hospital , Treves enabled Joseph to be given a permanent home at the hospital. There, Merrick thrived. He became something of a celebrity in High Victorian society, eventually becoming a favourite of Queen Victoria . Although numerous people, including a few women, came to visit him, he never found Love . Treves later commented that Joseph always wanted, even after living at the hospital, to go to a hospital for the blind so that he could find a woman there who would not be frightened of his appearance. In his later years, he found some solace in writing, composing both prose and poetry..]] He was cared for at the hospital until his death at the age of 27 on 11 April , 1890 from suffocation while sleeping, which was apparently accidental. Merrick was unable to sleep horizontally due to the weight of his head, but he may have intentionally tried to do so in this instance in an attempt to imitate normal behaviour. He returned to popular attention in 1979 and 1980 when two high profile productions made Merrick their subject. His life story became the basis of a 1979 Tony Award -winning play, and in the following year an Academy Award -nominated film. Each production took a different approach to the story, but both were called '' The Elephant Man ''. Merrick's preserved skeleton is on permanent display at the Royal London Hospital . MEDICAL CONDITION In ) affects tissue other than nerves, and is a sporadic rather than familially transmitted disorder. In July 2003 , Dr. Charis Eng announced that as a result of DNA tests on samples of Merrick's hair and bone, she had determined that Merrick certainly suffered Proteus syndrome, and may have had neurofibromatosis type I as well. His PTEN gene (often mutated in the Proteus syndrome) appears to have been healthy (i.e., not mutated). As it stands, many people still refer to his condition as Elephantiasis (sometimes misspoken as "elephantitis.") {Link without Title} . In 2002 a television research team, along with Genealogist s 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 TV crew also discovered that Merrick's sister, Marion Eliza, also suffered from a crippling disease called Myelitis . Marion Eliza died at the age of 24. IN POPULAR CULTURE
FURTHER READING Following are books about or inspired by Joseph Merrick
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