The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (56 page)

Krao was a “wild child” who lived in Europe in the 1880s. Sometimes known as “Darwin's missing link,” she sported a prognathic face (one where the lower jaw extends beyond the upper part of the face), and her head and face were covered with a thick mane of hair down to the neck. Krao was first put on exhibit in a freak show when she was just seven years old. She was known for throwing temper tantrums, during which she would writhe on the ground and attempt to pull the hair out of her face.

Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy was an early 1900s freak-show performer who was said to have been captured in the forests of Russia, where he had been living off berries and small animals in imitation of his neighbors, the wolves. In reality he was just a very hairy boy, like his father, who was exhibited as a dog-faced man. Both father and son had thick, sandy-colored hair growing in tufts all over their faces. They were said to resemble terriers and had mastered a very convincing barking routine.

The hirsute Krao and Jo-Jo may have suffered from a rare genetic disorder called congenital hypertrichosis. People afflicted with this condition, of which there
are only about fifty documented cases since the Middle Ages, are covered head to toe with hair.

MAXIMUM MASS

Roman Emperor Maximus was the legendary king who was so large that he could wear his wife's bracelet as a wedding ring. He was said to be between eight and nine feet tall, and was a compulsive eater, binging on four pounds of flesh and six gallons of wine a day. He was as much muscle as he was fat, though, as he was known to be capable of knocking out the teeth of a horse with a single blow.

“I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.” —TALLULAH BANKHEAD

CHOREOMANIA

At various times in different countries, actual epidemics of dancing mania have occurred. In the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, these epidemics were especially common in western Germany. They would begin in an isolated community and in a short time would spread over a wide area. Soon whole communities across wide areas would be engaging in frenzied dancing.

MOM, I FEEL SICK

Scholionophobia is an extreme fear and hatred of school.

DON'T JUMP!

If you have a fear of falling from a height to your death, you have a mild version of bathophobia. This is not an uncommon fear, but the manic phobia manifests in a fear of not being able to control an impulse to jump from a high place.

DOCTOR, I'M NOT WELL

If you were really craving a drink during Prohibition, there was a clause in the Eighteenth Amendment that allowed for the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes.
Medicines that contained alcohol were prescribed for any number of “illnesses.”

SCARY HAIR