Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
tions or the exposure of a fetus to environmental factors such as tox-
ins or radiation may cause it. It can occur in combination with other
disorders, such as dwarfism (in which case it is classified as secondary
microcephaly). Microcephalics may have bodies of normal size, or they
may be small. The syndrome is found all over the world, especially in
communities where it is common for close relatives such as first cousins
varying degrees, and those who live to be adults are usually unable to
care for themselves.
Interestingly, doubting scientists are not the only ones susceptible
to equating primitive hominins with microcephalics. This same asso-
ciation has also become ingrained in American popular culture, since
at least the 1840s, when sideshows became a part of traveling circuses,
and Bartola appeared in an exhibition in Philadelphia in 1852, they were
billed as “microcephalic Aztecs,” supposed child-idols from the non-
Pinhead,” was displayed near the turn of the century by P. T. Barnum
(among others), dressed in a furry suit inside a cage, which he rattled
as he screeched. Audiences were told that Johnson was a “missing link”
who had been caught in Africa, where he had eaten only nuts, fruit, and
raw meat. The microcephalics Elvira and Jenny Lee Snow (“Zip and
Pip”) worked in various sideshows during the first part of the twenti-
eth century, where they were billed as “twins from Yucatan” and “wild
Australian children.” They also appeared in Tod Browning's classic 1932
(Schlitzie), also appeared in
Freaks
and had worked the carnival circuit
as “the Last of the Aztecs” and “the Monkey Girl.” (Although male,
Metz always wore muumuus.)
As we shall see, the assertions of some scientists that Hobbit was
a microcephalic human were every bit as dramatic as the claims that
microcephalic sideshow performers represented prehistoric humans or
