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Joseph Carey Merrick also known as John Merrick, was an English man with severe deformities. Best known as " The Elephant Man", he has been the subject of many medical studies, documentaries and works of fiction. At a young age Merrick began to develop severe physical deformities that he was forced to become a resident of a workhouse at the age of seventeen. In 1884, Merrick contacted a showman named Sam Torr to exhibit him. Torr arranged a group of men to manage Merrick, whom they named Merrick as " The Elephant Man".
Merrick travelled to London to be exhibited in a penny gaff shop organised by a showman Tom Norman. Norman's shop was visited by a surgeon named Frederick Treves who invited Merrick to be examined. After Merrick was displayed by Treves at a meeting of the pathological society of London in 1884, Norman's shop was shut down by the police and eventually Merrick joined Sam Roper's circus which was toured in Europe.
In Belgium, Merrick was robbed by his road manager and abandoned in Brussels. Merrick eventually mad his way back to London and was brought to the London hospital where he was allowed to stay for the rest of his life. He was frequently visited by Treves, and both developed quite a close friendship. Merrick died from a broken vertebrae on April 11, 1890 at the age of 27, confirmed by Treves who performed the autopsy. Although the official cause of his death was asphyxia. His head measured 36 inches in circumference and his right measured 12 inches at the wrist. His whole body was covered with tumors, and his legs and hip were so deformed that he had to take the help of a cane to walk.
In 1882, Merrick underwent surgery on his face. The protrusion from his mouth had grown to 8-9 inches and severely affected his speech and made it difficult to eat. He was operated under the direction of Dr. Clement Frederick Bryan in the workhouse Infirmary and had a large part of the mass removed.
After Joseph Merrick's passing, Treves made plaster casts of his body, also preserved his skeleton which has been kept on permanent display in the collections of the London hospital. It has been also reported that pop singer Micheal Jackson had attempted to buy the skeleton from London hospital.
The life of Joseph Merrick has also been the subject of various artistic interpretation. In 1979, a play by Bernard Pomerance called " The Elephant Man " was debuted on Broadway. In 2014, a revival production of the " The Elephant Man " starring Bradley Cooper brought Bernard Pomerance's play and Merrick's life story back to Broadway. In November 2016, Joanne Vigor Mungovin published a book " The Life, Times and Places of the Elephant Man " with the foreword written by a member of Merrick's family.
The letter reads:
Dear Miss Maturin
Many thanks indeed for the grouse and the book, you so kindly sent me, the grouse were splendid I saw Mr Treves on Sunday He said I was to give his best respects to you With much gratitude I am Yours Truly
Joseph Merrick
London Hospital Whitechapel
'Tis true my form is something odd, But blaming me is blaming God; Could I create myself anew I would not fail in pleasing you. If I could reach from pole to pole Or grasp the ocean with a span, I would be measured by the soul; The mind's the standard of the man.
— poem used by Joseph Merrick to end his letters, adapted from "False Greatness" by Isaac Watts
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