Robert Pershing Wadlow: February 2006

Saturday, February 11, 2006

February 23, 1930 - patients turned to stare when Robert Wadlow, a huge figure, walked through the corridors of Barnes Hospital recently with a group of staff doctors. The patients were interested in his tremendous size. He dwarfed the doctors. The doctors were interested in the fact that Robert was only 11 years old and seven feet tall. Robert was interested in a fountain pen one of the doctors carried in his breast pocket.
It was pretty slick; not really, a pen at all, but just a pen barrel in which a flashlight was concealed. Robert bent low and confided to the doctor that he had a big, three-cell flashlight home, but this fountain pen had it beat three ways. Did the doctor insist, huh, on all these X-ray pictures and things? They were kind of scary, these X-ray machines. Such a racket. The doctor did not insist, but assured him that they wouldn't do him any harm.And if Robert just sat tight and took things calmly, like a soldier, the trick fountain-pen flashlight would be his.
The pictures were taken and questions asked and answered and Robert, smiling over the bargain, went back home with his father, bearing a new trinket to show the kids in Upper Alton.
To the hospital staff there was nothing odd about Robert's childish interest in the flashlight. His unusual bulk made it appear queer. In fact, he was, and is, only a child, perfectly normal in all respects but size. His bodily measurements are proportionate, but scaled considerably larger than normal. Mentally, he is a little bit ahead of other 11-year olds. He plays the same boys' games has the same interests, wants to be an aviator. But he is big. He will be bigger, too. Last year he grew four inches and will probably continue to grow until he is 22 or 23 years of age. Physically normal persons ordinarily stop growing at 17 or 18; but "giants" (and as such are persons like Robert known to the medical profession) keep on a few years longer. It is doubtful that the four-inches-a-year rate will continue, but Robert still may become the largest man the world has known. The Irish giant, Byrns, was the largest in recorded history - 8 feet 9 inches.
This extraordinary growth is due to the over-activity of a small gland called the pituitary, located at the base of the skull. Normally, it is about the size of a pea. X-ray photographs show that Robert Wadlow's is slightly larger. Functioning in its normal way the pituitary regulates the growth of the body, giving each organ and division its proper development.
When it works too fast, one of two things happens. If its over activity starts in childhood, giantism results. The child develops on a gigantic scale, as has Robert Wadlow, normal in every respect but size.