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Weekend


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November 5, 2004

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q.  In Herman Melville's novel "Whitejacket," there's mention of an old woman from whose forehead grows a "hideous crumpled horn, like that of a ram."  Writer W.H. Davies described meeting a woman with a pair of horns on her head. What was the source of such bizarre, literary imaginings?

    A.  Likely it was reality, as horned people have always existed, says Jan Bondeson in "The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels."  The largest horn ever recorded belonged to Mexican Paul Rodrigues, who always kept his head covered until one day at work in 1820 a falling barrel knocked him unconscious.  When bystanders removed the covering, they discovered three horny growths textured like a ram's horns, some 14 inches around.  He recovered, and his case was written up in a medical journal.


     
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