Remarks on obesity / by John Richard Wardell, M.D.

  • Wardell, John Richard, 1819-1885.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on obesity / by John Richard Wardell, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the Bosjesmian Hottentots which many travellers have not omitted todescrilie. Tliere is a race of sheep at the Cape of Good Hope, in Ihe bodies of which partial obesity is so considerably developed in their hind quarters, as to quite destroy the animal's symmetry. Obesity is not confined to any par- ticular period of life, as infants as well as adults labour under the affection ; and illustrations are in medical htera- ture supplied, where at birth the obese tendency was evident, and which gra- dually afterwards progressed to extra- ordinary magnitudes. Mr. Wadd, who is quoted by most writers on this sub- ject, has given many instances corro- borative of what, is now asserted. Mary Tate (says Mr. Wadd) was the daughter of an inn keeper at Cam- bridge, and at 12 years weighed 13 stone! Isaac Bntterfield, born near Leeds, when not 2 years old weighed one hundred-weight! I may here give the particulars of an extraordinary case which I personally examined a few weeks ago, in the instance of a child which has been for some months past publicly exhibited in various parts of London, and called the Infant Go- liah. William Fields was born at Manchester in October, 1845. At birth he had three teeth, and when thirteen months old he had twenty-six teeth. He is of particularly mild and amiable disposition, scarcely ever being fretful and uneasy, as generally noticed in children of his time of life. Has light hair, blue eyes, and is of fair com- plexion. Around the shoulders he measured thirty-nine and a half inches; round the body, thirty-six and a half inches; round the knee, sixteen and a quarter inches ; at calf of leg, fourteen and three-quarters; at ankles, seven and a half; at upper arm, fourteen and three-quarters; and below elbow, eleven and a half inches : weighed then (Nov. 1848), being but three years and a month old, 124 pounds! One of his relatives, his father informed me, weighed 35 stone, 12 lbs. He is as fall as most boys at six years of age. The skin is soft and smooth to the touch, and, when pressed upon, imparted to the fingers that elastic springy feel so characleristic of fatty formations. The subcutaneous accumulation hangs in pendulent annular folds on the limbs, and at the lateral aspects of the body bags down in shapeless masses. Ihe penis and scrotum T parlicularly exa- mined, as well as Mr. Prout Girdwood, who accompanied me to inspect this strange specimen of obese disease, and it was found that the genital organs were not larger than in children of the same age. No testes could be felt, and the scrotum contained nothing but two thin cord-like substances, of not more than from one to two lines in thickness. The father slated that both Sir Charles Clark and Dr. Locock had previously examined the genital organs, and that they were normal; but those physi- cians could not have made more than a visual inspection, as there certainly were no teste-; detectable by manipula- tion. His appetite was very large, and he passed the major part of his time in eating and sleeping. After numerous questions were put, it was conclusive there was no precocity of intellect, and his deportment and answers were quite in accordance with such as might have been expected in children of his age.* It appears to have been one of the many wise provisions of Nature that all young animals should be endowed with a considerable amount of fat, thereby supplying an abundance of those materials so essentially neces- sary in the generation of animal heat; and, were it otherwise, young creatures would be liable to perish from a gradual declension of vital power consequent upon a deficient amount of animal heat, without which all tribes of warm- blooded animals could not exist. M. Chossat'sf experiments on this point * In eunuchs, the castration and spaying of animals, there is abundant proof tiow the re- moval of the te<tes and ovaria favour corpulency, and that by their loss the body loses its fine proportions. A case may here be cited where there was congenital deficiency of the testps m an individual whom I have long known. From infancy he was fat, and became more unshapely as he became older. He is between twenty and thirty years of age, and a monster ni appearance, from obesity and unsymmetrical development. This person is below the middle stature; lia.s no whiskers or beard, small sunken eyes, squeakmg voice, eflfeminate hands, the scrotum and penis remarkably small, and without any hair on the pubis. His figure is unwieldy and dispropor- tionnte. The inferior extremities are thrown forward in the gait, and the limbs have lost their proper shape. The skin is soft and velvctty, and those inter-muscular lines so natural to the ina.o conformation are lost in a sino. th and even plumpness. There are cases on record, w-here the testes, from accident or operation. >!nve n lost, where a change to the above-described con- ditions have gradually supervened, proving n^ disputably how these organs influence the entire ^^'t Kecherchcs Kxperiraentales sur I'luanition. Paris, 1843.