Norman gathered the audience and led them into the shop, explaining that Elephant Man "didn't come to scare you, but to please you." He drew back the curtains to let the audience watch Merrick carefully and talk about Merrick's mother's accident. Elephant Man's performance is not brilliant, and his main income comes from selling merrick's autobiography. Merrick saved his income in the hope of buying himself a house. Merrick's performance is opposite the store where the Royal London Hospital is located. Many doctors and students in the hospital often visit this store and are curious about merrick. ReginaldTuckett is one of the future residents. Like his colleagues, Tackett was attracted by the elephant's deformity and told his senior colleague Frederick Treves. In June of that year, Frederick Treves paid his first private visit to Merrick. In the memory of 1923, Treves remembers Merrick as "the most disgusting person I have ever met" ... I have never met such a deformed and lonely person. ”。 The meeting didn't last more than 15 minutes before Treves went back to work. Later that day, Treves asked Takit to come to the store and asked merrick if he would like to come to the hospital for examination. Norman and Merrick agreed. In order not to attract attention, Merrick wore a black cloak and a hat to cover his face, and was picked up by a taxi rented by Treves. In the hospital, Treves found Merrick "shy, confused and very scared, obviously ashamed of himself". For this reason, Treves thinks that elephant people are "retarded". He measured merrick's head circumference at 36 inches (9 1 cm), right wrist circumference at 12 inches (30 cm) and one finger at 5 inches (13 cm). He recorded that merrick's skin was covered with papillomas and had an unpleasant smell. Subcutaneous tissue appears fragile and slack. The right arm and leg bones are deformed, and the skull deformity is very obvious. Although Merrick had a mouth plastic surgery at 1882, Merrick could hardly understand his speech. His left arm and hand are small, but they are not deformed. His penis and scrotum are normal. Apart from his deformity and hip disability, Treves concluded that merrick's overall condition was healthy. Norman remembers that Merrick went to the hospital for "two or three times". During one of their meetings, Treves gave Merrick a business card. During an interview, Treves took a photo of Merrick and gave him a copy, which was later included in Merrick's autobiography. On February 2, 65438, Treves brought Merrick to the London Pathology Society in Bloomsbury. Finally, Merrick told Norman that he didn't want to be examined again. According to Norman's description, merrick claimed that he was "stripped naked, like an animal in a livestock factory". In this Victorian England, people's taste in performances like people has changed. Performances like Norman attract public attention. Shortly after Merrick received Treves' last inspection, the police closed Norman's shop. 1885, merrick began to travel with Saloper, the owner of the travel amusement park. He met two other actors who protected Merrick from mass harassment-"Roper's Dwarf"-bertram Dolly and Harry Brown Murray. Merrick left London for a holiday three times and stayed in the country for several weeks. After careful arrangement, Merrick boarded the train without being found. He came to Northamptonshire and lived in forsberg Hall. He met a farm worker, and he recalled that Merrick was an interesting and educated man. During his four years in the Royal London Hospital, merrick's health gradually deteriorated. He is well taken care of by nurses, and spends most of his time in bed or sitting in his own home. His facial deformity continues to grow, and his head is more swollen than before. Merrick died in April of 1890 at the age of 27. At about 3 pm, Treves' family surgeon came to see Merrick and found him dead in bed. His uncle Charles merrick recognized his body. Wayne Edwin Baxter (en:WynneEdwinBaxter) conducted an autopsy on the body on April 15, and Wayne conducted an autopsy on the victims of the murder in Whitechapel on April 1888.
Merrick's death was an accident. His death certificate says that he died of suffocation, which was caused by the weight of his head when he lay down. Treves conducted an autopsy on the body and claimed that the cause of death was a dislocated neck. Treves knew that Merrick was asleep while sitting, so he decided that Merrick must be "doing experiments". He lay down and wanted to sleep like everyone else. Treves dissected Merrick's body and made plaster casts of his head and limbs. He took a skin sample, but lost it in World War II, put his skeleton in it, and now he is hiding in the Royal Hospital of London. Its skeleton is closed to the public. Since joseph merrick began to perform, his situation has always made medical experts curious. 1884, his appearance in the pathologicalSocietyofLondon attracted the attention of many doctors, but did not give Treves the answer he hoped for. Merrick's story was only briefly mentioned in the British Medical Journal, while The Lancet refused to publish it. Four months later, 1885, Tom Norman's shop closed and Elephant Man had to leave. Treves came to the Pathology Society with a photo of merrick for the second time. At that time, a dermatologist named Henry Radcliffe Crocker specialized in skin diseases. After listening to Treves' description of merrick and seeing photos, Crocker speculated that merrick suffered from ptosis and neuromatoid elephantiasis syndrome and an unknown skeletal deformity, which were all caused by mental diseases. Crocker mentioned the situation in merrick in his book Dermatosis: Their Description, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment 1888.
1909, the dermatologist Frederick Parks Weber wrote an article about von recklinghausen's disease (now called neurofibromatosis type I) in the British Journal of Dermatology. He pointed out that merrick suffered from this disease, which was described by German pathologist Friedrich von recklinghausen as early as 1882. Symptoms of this genetic disease include nerve tissue and bone tumors, as well as small warts on the skin. One of the symptoms of neurofibromatosis is light brown pigment deposition on the skin, which is called coffee milk spot. But this situation is not reflected in merrick. Neurofibromatosis type I is the most widely accepted disease in the 20th century, and other diseases such as Maffucci syndrome and fibrous dysplasia of bone are also widely accepted.
MichaelCohen and J.A.R Tibbles put forward the theory that merrick suffers from Pross syndrome and congenital disorder in an article in the British Medical Journal from 65438 to 0986. They pointed out that merrick has no symptoms of coffee milk spots, and there is no literature to prove that merrick has neurofibromatosis type I. Different from neurofibromatosis, Prologis syndrome has stronger influence on tissues than nerves, and Prologis syndrome is sporadic rather than hereditary disease. Cohen and Tibers said that merrick showed the following characteristics of Prologis syndrome: "Big head, hypertrophy of bones, overgrowth of long bones, thickening of skin and subcutaneous tissues, especially hands and feet ..." In June of 2001year, British scientist PaulSpiring speculated that merrick might suffer from neurofibromatosis type I and Prologis syndrome. RobertMatthews, a reporter from the Sunday Telegraph, reported this hypothesis. Based on this assumption, a documentary called The Journey of Elephants was broadcast in 2003. In 2002, the BBC called for a genealogical survey of matriarchal families in merrick. Leicester resident Pacl Bye was found to be the granddaughter of merrick's uncle george porter. An investigation team collected Selby's DNA, but failed to diagnose merrick's disease. In 2003, the filmmakers commissioned further DNA tests on merrick's hair and bones. But in the end, the investigation made no progress, and merrick's physical condition was unknown.