LITTLE PEOPLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8681, 14 March 1914, Page 11

LITTLE PEOPLE

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DWARFS AND MIDGETS.

Professor Hastings Gilford, who delivered the first of his Hunterian lectures on “Infantilism” at the Royal ■College of Surgeons recently, had some interesting things to say about dwarfs and midgets. In one case Professor Gilford found it took twenty years for one of these little people to grow as much as an iordinary child grows in five years. One case was mentioned in which 'one of them passed as a child 'anti! inoarly thirty, having no difficulty in' itravelling on the railway with a half I ticket. t Another case was that of a boy of fourteen who could pass as a baby ini arms, and who, in fact, took the lead-1 ing role in one of the London the-j at res, acting alternately ias a baby .and as a diminutive “man about town” with great' intelligence and ability. There are two distinct types. Some of the little people remain infantile always, with bones gristly, like children’s bones. They continue; slowly growing, and have no signs of manhood or of womanhood. In the other land the hones harden, and growth steps. These are mingled adults and children, and often rejoice in beards and moustaches. Some of them have actually become the proud fathers or mothers of diminutive beings like themselves.