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This documentary follows obesity specialist Ian Campbell as he travels to the Far South of Russia to meet Jambik who, at seven-years-old and 16 stone, is the heaviest child in the world. In order to work out the reason for his extreme obesity, Campbell observes Jambik at home and school before flying him to Moscow to run some hospital tests on him. It becomes clear that Jambik's mother is feeding him anabolic steroids to make him grow big because his celebrity is bringing them a much better lifestyle than they could have imagined otherwise - but how can Campbell persuade his mother that the way she is raising Jambik is killing him?

Body Shock

1 videocassette (VHS) (60 min.) : sound, color, PAL.

The world's biggest boy.

Russian teenager Natasha claims to be able to see into people's bodies in order to diagnose illness. In the small town in which she lives she is famous and people from all over the country visit her for help. We follow her as she travels to Manhatten to SCICOP, an institution who have been testing the validity of so-called psychics for 30 years, to undergo tests.

1 video cassette (VHS) (60 min.) : sound, color, PAL.

The girl with the x-ray eyes.

This documentary is about the only known family of siblings alive who all have the premature ageing condition, progeria. The five siblings live in an Indian village and were discovered by doctors in Calcutta. Throughout the programme we see various experts in the condition assess the siblings in an attempt both to help them and to get a greater understanding of the genetic structures that bring about progeria. As such, the programme contains much medical information and x-ray footage of the children's bodies as well as accounts of the latest research into finding the gene for progeria from Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Institute.

The 80-year-old children.

This programme is about 31-year-old Huang Chuncai from Daqui Village, South East China. He has enormous facial and body tumours, caused by neurofibromatosis, which have led him to live life as a complete recluse, kept alive only through the support of his family. His family have never been able to afford surgery to help him and he faces certain death unless his tumours are at least partially removed. We follow his story as he travels 300 miles to Fuda Cancer Hospital for Professor Xu to operate on him. Professor Xu uses cryoablation to operate on the tumour - this procedure has only previously been used to treat prostrate cancer, never to remove such a gigantic tumour. After six weeks in hospital Huang returns home with 5 kilos of his tumour removed. However he is still severely disabled by the growths and is in a lot of pain. Professor Xu is to perform further surgery on Huang in three months time.

I am the elephant man.

In 2005 in a remote village in Northern India a little girl was born to Poonan Tatua who had 4 arms and 4 legs. Revered as the reincarnation of Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth and fortune, the villagers have accepted and worshipped her. However, paediatric surgeon Dr. Sharan Patis believes she should undergo surgery as he thinks that the extra limbs belong to a parasitic twin which will prove fatal if left untreated. There have only ever been a handful of parasitic twins known about in the world and an operation to separate them has never occurred in India, neither has there been a case in which the parasitic twin is joined at the pelvis to the host twin. Medical science and society clash here as her parents and the villagers who worship her are opposed to the surgery. The parents agree to the surgery and leave the village for the first time to travel 2000 miles to the modern city of Bangalore. The programme includes detailed surgical footage of the separation, which is successful. The parents move away from the village and are helped to have a much better quality of life. However, they go on believing she is the Goddess Lakshmi.

The girl with eight limbs.

Milagros Cerron was born in Peru with sirenomelia (mermaid syndrome), a rare abnormality which means her legs are fused together, appearing somewhat like a mermaid's tail. Her parents, Sara and Ricardo, come from the Peruvian mountains where such birth defects are seen to be the result of a curse on the family. The media pick up on the story of this birth which alerts the attention of plastic surgeon Luis Rubio who runs a group of private hospitals in Peru and immediately sends an ambulance over to pick up the baby and bring her to his hospital. What follows is a fascinating meeting of medicine, politics and superstition as Rubio performs the operation to separate Milagros' legs on live television while the family struggle to come to terms with the possibility that Milagros is not damned with a 'mermaid's curse' from the nearby lake.

Curse of the mermaid.

Follows the story of Lucica Bunghez, a Rumanian woman with an 11-stone neurofibromatosis tumour growing on her back. Although the tumour is benign it has become a life-threatening parasite which is literally destroying her body. Bunghez undergoes surgery, we see quite detailed footage of her 12-hour operation. Alongside this story we follow a young English man, Matt Peperell, who was born with neurofibromatosis but has only had small unproblematic tumours to deal with up until now when he is developing a large tumour inside his right thigh. We follow him through surgery. Fortunately in both cases here the results are good and the two subjects of the documentary go on to lead healthy lives.

Megatumour.

Egyptian baby girl Manar Maged was born with a second head which shows signs of consciousness but is a parasite, living from Manar's blood. Her hopes of survival seemed slim but she survived until 10 months old despite having seven heart attacks. The hospital decide to operate to remove the parasitic head. Dr. Hefnawi of the Benha Children's Hospital where Manar has lived since birth decides to broadcast the operation live on t.v. to raise the profile of the hospital and get them more money. Surgeon, Lotfy, is not happy about this. Manar loses so much blood during surgery she has to have four times her own volume in transfused blood. The operation (shown here in some detail) takes 13 hours. After a long recovery, Manar, her mother, and the hospital medical team travel to US to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show. Manar goes home to live but needs constant care and has clearly suffered some brain damage.

1 video cassette (60 min.) (VHS) : sound, color, PAL.

Born with two heads.

Documentary looking at feral children and the question of how to rehabilitate them. Oxana Malaya was left outside by her alcoholic parents as a toddler, so crawled into a kennel for warmth and spent more time with dogs than humans, so grew up behaving more like a dog than a child. Dramatic reconstruction illustrates the story of Victor, the first scientifically recorded case of a wild child, discovered in France in 1800. The experiments of Winthrop Kellogg and Harry Harlow, both involving the early development of monkeys, are briefly covered. The case of Jeannie Wiley is explained in detail: she was discovered as a 13-year-old in a house where she had been kept in total isolation by her parents, strapped to a potty chair by day and kept in a cage at night. She was unable to walk and was never spoken to, so was unable to speak. Child Psychologist James Kent and Professor of Linguistics Susan Curtiss talk of their work with Jeannie. In the Ukraine town of Mirny, a 4-year-old boy called Edik who grew up with stray dogs is now living with a foster family. James Law, Professor of Language and Communication, visits Edik to evaluate his prospects. Although, with help, rehabilitated feral children are gradually able to empathise and learn single words, they will not be able to learn spoken language and grammar past the age of 4 years. They will probably have social and emotional problems and difficulties in forming personal relationships. The programme ends by pointing out that we should be inspired by these children because in spite of the horrendous treatment they have had, they have a kernal of humanity that will not be crushed, and are still willing to put out a hand and touch a new person.

1 video cassette (VHS) (50 min.) : sound, color, PAL.

Wild child.

Patrick Deuel is one of the world's heaviest men. At his heaviest (76 stone) his health was at serious risk, leading to his hospitalisation where it was discovered he was on the verge of death from congenital heart disease. When his health is stabilised, Dr. Fred Morris, an obesity surgeon, operates on his stomach to reduce it to the size of a thumb and Deuel returns home weighing 44 stone. The documentary follows Deuel's progress out of the hospital and we also hear from Rosalie Bradford, once 85 stone and the world's heaviest woman, from Michael Hebranko who became a celebrity after losing 50 stone only to be rushed to hospital 7 years later weighing 70 stone. Richard Simmonds, a dieting guru, talks about his own battle with obesity, and he visits Brook Haven, a centre run by Rob Coleman, for people with morbid obesity.

Half ton man.

This documentary follows two pairs of conjoined twins and looks at their health concerns. Both pairs are dicephalic parapagus twins, a condition thought to affect one in a million people; they share one body but have two heads. Sohna and Mohna have grown up in an orphanage in Amritsar, India. They are about to turn 9 and they live a normal life, going to school and playing. When they were 6 tests revealed that they had two separate hearts, helping them to lead active, healthy lives. Radiologist Dr Rakesh Chouhan investigates how they have adapted to living in a single body. The twins Jesus and Emanoel were recently born in Brazil. Medical staff in the hospital and their family in the rainforest consider their futures. The boys have separate nerves, but an MRI scan reveals that they only have one heart and cannot be separated. Mr Edward Kiely, Paediatric Surgeon from Great Ormond Street Hospital, considers the possibility of separating the boys. The ethical issues that would be involved in their separation are discussed by Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, Oxford. Despite the hospital’s best efforts, the twins die at 6 months old. A look at the reality show of twenty-two year old American conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel shows how they continue to defy expectations.

Body Shock.

The twins who share a body.

This programme tells the story of Daniel Vetter, born in Houston in 1971 with severe combined immune deficiency (SCIDS) - a condition in which there is no functioning immune system. Paediatric doctors had hoped to give him a bone marrow transplant immediately after birth, but the procedure failed and Daniel was delivered into a germ-free plastic isolation chamber. The isolation chamber was intended to be temporary but he was to remain there for the next twelve years of his life before a new attempt to give him a bone marrow transplant led to his contracting an infection and dying. The programme uses archive footage and interviews with Daniels mother and those involved in Daniel's care at the time, particularly psychologists faced with his emotional well-being, bringing together an unforgettably poignant account of life for a young boy who could never be held or touched and whose home was a sterile bubble in a hospital laboratory.

1 videocassette (65 min.) (VHS) : sound, color, PAL.

Boy in the bubble.

This programme follows 28-year-old Brett Kehrer as he undergoes radical treatment to cure a potntially fatal aneurysm. Neurosurgeon Robert Spetzler leaves Kehrer clinically dead, in a state of suspended animation known as hypothermic cardiac standstill, for an hour as he operates. We follow the surgery and Kehrer's recovery. We also hear about how a woman frozen to death in an icy river was brought back to life after being pronounced clinically dead. Mark Roth says that the technology of hypothermia can buy time for all trauma victims. He is researching into how hydrogen sulphide injections might produce a state of suspended animation, like the process of hibernation in animals, thus enabling this kind of surgery to take place without having to stop the heart.

1 videocassette (60 min.) (VHS) : sound, color, PAL.

Kill me to cure me.

This documentary looks into the world of Tatiana and Krista, conjoined twins living in Vernon, Canada. They are unusual, not just because they are joined at the head, a condition called craniopagus twins, but also because they are joined at the brain. Their mother, Felicia Simms, describes her pregnancy, the birth and the expectations for their life given that separation was not an option. Their mother believes that their shared thalamus means they think the same thoughts and can feel the same things as each other. The programme follows the family as doctors attempt to prove or disprove this possibility as well as tests which assess their health in general as Tatiana's heart is under pressure to keep the circulation going for both of them. They meet famous conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell who talk about how they have managed to live their lives conjoined at the head.

The twins who share a brain.

A harrowing look at the real-life experiences of people who have regained consciousness during surgery but because of paralytic drugs have been unable to move and alert the attention of surgeons. The programme includes an outline of the techniques of modern anaesthesia, a complex balance of drugs which if not applied perfectly can lead to what is known as anaesthetic awareness. We hear the stories of people who have been conscious through surgery about their memories of the event and the way it has affected their lives since. Anaesthesiologists also talk about their work.

When anaesthesia fails.

Aged DNA expert Erika Hagelberg believes that samples taken from Joseph Merrick's bones may shed light onto the condition causing his terrible physical deformities. Meanwhile, descendents of Merrick attempt to discover whether or not a version of Merrick's disease is lurking in the DNA of one of the branches of the family tree. It is currently thought that Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) might be the condition that affected Merrick; we meet a young American man with the condition whose family has been devastated by it. David Nunn, curator at The Royal London Hospital, shows how the bones of Merrick show signs of NF1 but can that alone explain the severity of his deformity? We also hear about Proteus Syndrome, a rare condition caused by a mutated gene - could Merrick have had this condition as well as NF1 or is there an as-yet undiscovered gene mutation? If Merrick had been born today, could surgeons have helped him? And imaging specialists attempt to make a picture of how he would have looked without his deformities.

Riddle of the elephant man.

Documentary telling the story of a 7-year-old Kazakhstani boy called Alamjan, on whom doctors performed surgery, discovering that this child's twin was growing inside him. His family had thought that his seriously distended stomach was caused by rickets or a hernia, but surgeons thought it was a cyst and operated. What they found inside was a living being: Alamjan's twin, who, instead of growing in their mother's womb, had become trapped inside Alamjan's body while they were still foetuses.

The boy who gave birth to his twin.

Dr. Stuart Meloy believes he has found a treatment which might induce spontaneous female orgasms. This programme explores the science behind this invention and also follows 3 couples participating in a week-long trial of his method.

Orgasmatron.

A documentary following the story of Terry Wallis who 'woke up' last summer after spending 19 years in a coma. In truth, the title of the programme is somewhat confusing because what seems rather to have happened is that Wallis regained the ability to speak. He has no short-term memory and thinks his daughter who was a baby when he went into a coma and is now in her early twenties, is a potential girlfriend. What the programme does offer, however, is an insight into the nature of coma and the profound ways it affects the brain. We see a young woman being retrained to perform the most basic of physiological functions like sitting and walking after waking from a coma. And we meet a British man who briefly lost consciousness after a minor car crash and is now unable to feel emotion, or in fact any empathic emotions.

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The world's biggest boy.

The girl with the x-ray eyes.

The 80-year-old children.

I am the elephant man.

The girl with eight limbs.

Curse of the mermaid.

Megatumour.

Born with two heads.

Wild child.

Half ton man.

The twins who share a body.

Boy in the bubble.

Kill me to cure me.

The twins who share a brain.

When anaesthesia fails.

Riddle of the elephant man.

The boy who gave birth to his twin.

Orgasmatron.

The man who slept for 19 years.

Stay in the know

Today’s opening times

Wellcome uses cookies.

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More filters

Active filters:

The world's biggest boy.

The girl with the x-ray eyes.

The 80-year-old children.

I am the elephant man.

The girl with eight limbs.

Curse of the mermaid.

Megatumour.

Born with two heads.

Wild child.

Half ton man.

The twins who share a body.

Boy in the bubble.

Kill me to cure me.

The twins who share a brain.

When anaesthesia fails.

Riddle of the elephant man.

The boy who gave birth to his twin.

Orgasmatron.

The man who slept for 19 years.

Stay in the know

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Today’s opening times