OP THE HUMAN SYSTEM. 415 



They were not related to each other, and the relations of all 

 were of the common size. Their countenances were those of 

 persons more advanced. The smallest dwarf on record was only 

 sixteen inches high, when thirty-seven years of age.* 



The tallest person authentically recorded has never exceeded 

 nine feet, according to Haller. The young man from Hunting- 

 donshire, also lately exhibited in London, was of remarkable 

 height. Although only seventeen years of age, he was nearly 

 eight feet. He had a sister of great height, and many of his 

 family were very tall. He was, as is usual, born of the ordinary 

 size, but soon began to grow rapidly. He appeared amiable, 

 and as acute as most youths of his age and rank. 



Giants and dwarfs providentially seldom reach their fortieth 

 year and have not very active organs of generation. As the 

 period of growth is so short in dwarfs, and the period of child- 

 hood so short in those who reach puberty early, it is to be ex- 

 pected that their old age will be premature, — that their stationary 

 period and decline will be likewise short. f Giants do not, like 

 dwarfs, I believe, die from premature old age, but from mere 

 exhaustion. 



• Haller, Element a Physiologic. T. 12. lib. 30. 



t " In the year 1748, Mr. Dawkes, an eminent surgeon at St. Ives, near 

 Huntingdon, published a small tract called Prodigium Wellinghamense, or 

 an Account of a surprising Boy, who was buried at Wellingham, near Cam- 

 bridge, upon whom he wrote the following epitaph. But whether it was ever 

 engraved upon his tombstone I have not yet learned. It is in Latin, the Eng- 

 lish of which is — 



' Stop, traveller, and wondering know, that here lie the remains of Thomas, 

 son of Thomas and Margaret Hall. Before he was a year old, he arrived at 

 puberty ; and was near four feet high before he was three years old ; endowed 

 with great strength, exact symmetry of parts, and a stupendous voice ; he had 

 not quite reached his sixth year, when he died as of an advanced age. 



* Here he was born, and here he gave way to fate, Sept. 3, 1747. ' 



" Mr. Dawkes viewed him, after he was dead, and says the corpse had the 

 aspect of a venerable old man." A Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental 

 Inscriptions, Historical, Biographical, Literary, and Miscellaneous, vol. ij. 

 3. 140. 



