Gigantism 



PETEE BASSOE 



CHICAGO 



"Gigantism is an anomaly of skeletal growth characterized by an 

 excessive height of the individual as compared with the average of his 

 race, and exhibiting a morphologic and functional disharmony charac- 

 teristic of this morbid state" (Launois and Roy). 



Henry Meige (b) was the first (1902) to insist that a person merely 

 very tall but otherwise normal should not be called a case of gigantism. 

 That such a restricted use of the term is not a violation of the English 

 language is shown by the definition of gigantism given in Webster's 

 "New International Dictionary" of 1914: "Development to abnormal 

 size accompanied by various stigmata such as disproportionately large 

 extremities or marked facial asymmetry, and usually by constitutional 

 weaknesses. Development to unusual size but with normal physique is 

 not giantism." 1 To obviate confusion with "normal" excessive growth 

 the terms "maerosomia" (Malacarne, Taruifi) and "somatomegaly" 

 (Dana, Meige) have been proposed but they have not been generally used 

 and to-day in medicine the term gigantism is accepted as standing for a 

 morbid condition and not a normal variation. As a matter of fact, all 

 persons of giant size who have been studied in recent years by modern 

 methods, including the X-ray and close scrutiny of the endocrin glands, 

 have been found to be abnormal. The "normal giant/ 7 the physical 

 superman with strength and energy in proportion to his size, belongs to 

 legend rather than in the realm of critically observed phenomena. 

 Launois and Roy point out that the pathologic nature of gigantism was 

 understood by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century as Diderot 

 and Alembert's Dictionnaire encyclopedique contains this statement: 

 "When giants attain the the height of seven or eight feet they are most 

 frequently badly formed, ill, and incapable of exercising the commonest 

 functions." 



References to giants abound in the myths and legends of all races. 2 



1 Giantism is apparently given preference to giganism as a better English word, 

 but the latter is generally used in medical literature. 



3 Most of these are assembled in the book of Gamier, "Les Nains et les Geants," 

 Paris, 1884. A very complete historical review is also found in the monograph of 

 Launois and Roy. The latter work, on which we draw very heavily in this article, gives 

 lengthy abstracts of practically the entire literature, lay and medical, dealing directly 

 or indirectly with gigantism up to the year 1904. 



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