In June 1873, Charles Byrne, feeling his end, asked his friends to bury him in the sea in a casket covered with lead.
He was 22 years old, was famous but fell out of favor and the only thing he had left was desperation and a deep terror of what could happen to him after his death.
He feared that the Resurrectionists – groups of criminals who made their living digging up corpses and selling them to medical schools or scientists – remain
And their fears were not unfounded .
Byrne, better known as "The Irish Giant," was 2.3 meters tall, at a time when he was very different His contemporaries generously paid to have the opportunity to admire all kinds of wonderful creatures – like animals with more heads or legs than necessary – as well as people afflicted by rare issues: bearded women, dwarves and giants.
And for men of science, a corpse like Byrne's was of great interest to the investigation.
That is why Byrne thought that he would only be safe when he was the bottom of the ocean
The most valuable corpses were pregnant women and people with strange conditions. In this drawing by T. Rowlandson of 1775, two men put a body that they just dug into a bag while Death catches one of the thieves. WELLCOME COLLECTION
22 years ago
Byrne was born in 1761 in Drummullan, a village that today has 175 inhabitants and lives in Northern Ireland.
We do not know much about his parents, beyond their extraordinary
It is said that he was conceived on a haystack and that that was the reason for his great cut.
And this great height, at a place and at a time when legends were reality, was good view
In Irish folklore, giants are imagined as beings who inhabit the border between l 39; human and the supernatural .
We owe them certain aspects of the landscape: hills, hills, and valleys, including several in or near the historic county of Tyrone, where Byrne grew up.
The Giant's Causeway is one of the natural beauties that giants have made in Ireland. As a child, you have surely heard of the formation of the Giant's Causeway when the mythical warrior Finn Mac Cool – who was not always a giant but in this case yes – was fighting another giant d & rsquo; # 39; Scotland.
Tired of screaming from one ocean to the other, Mac Cool put stones in the sea and made the pavement, but when he arrived in Scotland, he went to sea. realized that the giant was much taller than he, and he ran back [19659003Safemmel] asweakenglishbabenedevenwhen the Scottishgianthought himquesquebecause he was convinced hispair was to be huge and that he was fleeing
Mac Cool took a handful earthen. Scottish giant but he did not reach it: the terroir fell into the sea and formed the Isle of Man and the hole he left by removing the earth was filled of water and became the largest lake in Ireland: Lake Neagh .
At this time, for the
"The Irish Giant"
Rumors began to circulate in the county that there was one child growing up more than anyone else. When he reached adolescence, he was the biggest person in the area.
"Charles Byrne, a giant, George Cranstoun, a dwarf, and three other men of normal size" is the description of this engraving by J. Kay, 1794. WELLCOME COLLECTION
Byrne reached 2.31 meters from height
Hordes of people from all over the province came to see him while he dreamed of amassing a fortune with a show that made him famous all over Europe.
In 1782, under the pseudonym of "The Irish Giant", he arrived in a world completely different from the one he had left behind: London
The news of the arrival of the & # 39; 39, the greatest man who had walked the British capital was never He sprinkled quickly
It was said that he lit his pipe with the fire of street lamps . And the Morning Herald newspaper announced:
April 24, 1782
THE GIANT IRISH. See him, every day of this week, in his elegant and large room (…) on M. Byrne, the surprising giant Irishman, perhaps the tallest man in the world, with a height of 2.49 meters in perfect proportion and with only 21 years of age. # 39; eda d, n or will be long in London because she plans to travel to the mainland.
It began to show itself, the ticket price was high because it was a show designed for the middle class and the rich, who actually came to see him in his apartment.
The boy from a lost Irish town became one of London's greatest celebrities
The reason for his greatness
However, celebrity is an inconstant friend and the reason for which he had realized was not magical like the giants of legends: it was an illness.
Normal hand (left) next to someone who suffers from acromegaly (right). It is a disorder in which there is uncontrolled growth, which leads to changes in the features and enlargement of the hands and feet. Today, we recognize Byrne's gigantism as being caused by a tumor of the pituitary gland, the endocrine gland that secretes many essential hormones, including growth hormones.
Depending on the age of the patient at the beginning of the tumor, he develops gigantism or acromegaly (in adults).
Because the maintenance of a large and heavy body poses abnormal requirements on the bones and heart, gigantism causes multiple health problems. involving the circulatory or skeletal system
Acromegaly is a rare, insidious and potentially life-threatening condition for which there is a treatment that, if successful, gives the patient a life expectancy equal to that of the normal population.
] The Scottish Giant
John Hunter did not know it.
What Hunter knew was that Byrne was exceptional. He also knew that the giants were dying young
Hunter was the Scottish giant: a prominent scientist, now recognized as the father of modern surgery, with a distinguished reputation for his lectures and his aptitude as a physician. and is still a giant in the field of medicine. He wanted Byrne's body at all costs, so he offered to buy it. But he only frightened her.
Londoners of the 18th century regarded dissection as a mark of infamy .
Moreover, for Byrne, the offer of such a renowned doctor was an indication that Death was near
Far from home, scared, sore and weakened by tuberculosis, Byrne took refuge in the alcohol.
In April 1783, he fell asleep in a London street with all his savings. in your pocket. When he woke up, they were gone. The young giant sinks into despair
On Sunday, June 1 of the same year, he died . Thousands came on his awakening.
On the way from London to Margate, where he could lie under the waves of the sea, as he had wished, his body was removed from the coffin and replaced by stones
] Many say that it is Hunter himself who paid to rob Byrne's body. When he received it in his laboratory, he put it in a huge boiler and boiled it for 24 hours to separate the meat from the bones. He then assembled the skeleton and tied it up so that it stays as when the giant has lived.
What remained of Byrne has been part of Hunter's private collection for centuries. The truth is that a few years later, the skeleton appeared in Hunter's private collection, and remained exposed for two centuries at the Hunterian Museum, which then passed into the hands of the Royal College of Surgeons.
To date, the museum has rejected requests to remove Byrne's remains from the exhibition and his express wishes are fulfilled, claiming that has "significant educational and investigative value" .
They cited for example, the case of an investigation by the endocrinologist Márta Korbonits on a hereditary form of pituitary tumor called isolated family pituitary adenoma.
Korbonits had found a family with several affected members in recent history who came from the same county of Ireland as Byrne and asked if they were related.
With DNA tests of the "giant Irish" teeth, he found that Byrne as current patients inherited their genetic variant from the same common ancestor and that this mutation is about 1500 years .
The investigation opened the possibility of tracking carriers of this gene – estimated between 200 and 300 – and treating them before they became giants.
The Royal College of Surgeons of England will consider the issue of Byrne's remains during the three years that the museum will be closed. Nevertheless, activists allege that even when someone gives his body to medical research, they do not expect it to be presented as a curious object.
In addition, they point out that Charles Byrne explained that he did not want them to use his remains.
And finally, maybe it will happen
The Hunterian Museum has recently closed for a restoration that will last 3 years, during which … said the spokesman Royal College of Surgeons- "Charles Byrne's skeleton will not be exposed."
"The board of directors of the Hunteriana Collection will discuss the issue (repatriation of remains) during the closing period of the museum".
