This human mountain had literally to watch his step. He walked slowly, laboriously, with a shoulder-hunching shuffle. If he tripped and fell he ran the risk of breaking a bone or two by the sheer impact of his 491 1b. bulk on the side walk.
Though his limbs seemed to have been of the right proportion to his build he was physically abnormal. His hands were so enormous that he could hold a camera in his fist with only the lens showing between the index finger and thumb. His fingers were double-jointed, so that he could twist them into gruesome posi tions. The medical report shows that from his knees down Wadlow's legs were insensitive to touch, pain and heat. "My legs have grown too fast for the nerves to keep up" was his explanation. He could not feel a wrinkle in his sock or a pebble in his shoe. It was only when he examined his feet and saw a blister that he realized that something had irritated a foot. In fact, he was frequently troubled by blisters and. ulcers. His last illness began with an infected left ankle. Physicians resorted to a blood transfusion and a minor operation, but, because of his physiologically defective legs, the 491 1b. colossus failed to respond.
He devoured four portions of everything, so that he had what mathematicians might call the square of two square meals. His breakfast consisted of a whole package of cooked cereal, a quart of orange juice, from eight to a dozen eggs, twelve slices of toast, a pint-jar of apple jelly and five cups of coffee, though he could have drunk ten. Once a lunch-wagon proprietor offered to let him drink all the coffee he wanted for 25 cents. Tie boy drank seventeen cups, or slightly more than a gallon. His perform: ances in public restaurants were so spectacular that everybody stopped eating to watch him.
There is every good reason to suppose that Robert Wadlow the most gigantic giant who ever lived. The Russian Machnov, who was ed in the early part of the present century as the tallest man in history, was reputed to have been 9 ft. 3 in. tall. Dr. Harvey Cushing, authority on the brain and the pituitary, never believed the tale. He listed as authentic the measurements of giants ranging from Tft. 5% to 8 ft. 2 in. and could find no authoritative evidence of any person's ever having approached a 9 ft. height.
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