While we dismiss as fabulous all ancient and modern accounts of dwarfish
races, we must also treat with the same scepticism the relations of
gigantic nations. Although individuals of incredible stature have been
occasionally seen, the word giant must be considered not only comparative
as regarding primary races, but in many instances allegorical. Thus the
Hebrew word, _Nophel_ and _Giboor_ (_Nephilim_ and _Gibborim_ in the
plural), did not signify giants, as commonly translated, but cruel and
violent men. Athletic power and uncommon energies were naturally
associated with the idea of supernatural stature, though intellectual
accomplishments were not always included in the association: on the
contrary, we find the ancient axiom _Homo longus rare sapiens_ frequently
adduced.
In temperate climates the height of the human race averages from four feet
and a half to six feet, but occasional instances have been met with of men
reaching eight and nine feet--nay, some authors go so far as ten and
eighteen; but the latter assertions seem to refer to fossil bones
attributed to man, but which evidently belonged to other animals. Buffon
mentions gigantic human bones discovered at Lucerne, but which upon
examination Blumenbach pronounced to be the remains of an elephant.
Halicot, in his work called _Gigantosteologia_, describes bones found in a
sepulchre in Dauphiny over which was a stone inscribed TEUTOBOCCHUS REX:
this skeleton was twenty-five feet and a half high, and ten feet broad at
the shoulder. Riolan, the celebrated anatomist, disputes the fact; and in
his book entitled _Gigantomachia_ positively affirms that they also
belonged to an elephant. It is worthy of remark, that in this controversy
each party considered his opinion and decision of sufficient weight to
need no illustration, and therefore neither of them thought it necessary
to confirm his _dixit_ by drawings and engravings of the questionable
remains. Such is the vanity of the learned! An infallible philosopher
informs us that Adam's stature was one hundred and twenty-three feet nine
inches; Eve's, one hundred and eighteen feet nine inches and three
quarters; Noah's, twenty feet short of Adam's; Abraham's, twenty-eight
feet; Moses', thirteen; and Hercules', ten.
That the first races of man were of larger dimensions than those of our
contemporaries, has ever been a general opinion. Thus Virgil in his
Georgics:
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.
Lucretius ascribes the same superiority to animals.
Jamque adeo fracta est aetas, effoetaque tellus
Vix animalia parva creat, quae cuncta creavit
Saecla, deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu.
And again the Mantuan poet,
Sic Omnia fatis
In pejus ruere, ac retro sublapsa referri.
Not only have our forefathers been considered more gigantic in stature,
but of more vigorous power. Hence Juvenal says,
Nam genus hoc, vivo jam decrescebat Homero.
Terra malos homines nunc educat, atque pusillos.
It is however obvious, that former races, although they might have
excelled the present generation in vigour from the nature of their
education and pursuits, could not claim any pre-eminence in stature. The
remains of human bones, found in tombs and Egyptian mummies, demonstrate
this fact most clearly; and the armour, helmets, and breastplates of the
ancients confirm it. Their swords were as light, nay, much lighter in many
instances, than those of the present day; and those enormous ones of the
times of chivalry were only wielded to inflict one overwhelming blow with
both hands, and could scarcely be recovered for protection.
Ancient writers corroborate this opinion. Homer, when speaking of a fine
man, gives him four cubits in height and one in breadth. Vitruvius fixes
the usual standard of man at six Roman feet: the giant Gabbarus mentioned
by Pliny did not exceed nine feet. Aristotle's admeasurement of beds was
six feet; and certainly the doorways of ancient edifices by no means
indicated taller inmates than our present generation. It is therefore
pretty clear that the supposed fossil remains of gigantic human bones
belonged to the _Megatherium_, the _Palaeotherium_, and other individuals,
which certainly prove that in remote ages there existed animals of much
larger dimensions than any now in being, though we have no reason to
suppose that this variety extended to our species.[2]
The origin of the fabled giants has led to marvellous disquisitions. Many
fathers of the church, amongst whom we may quote St. Cyprian, St.
Ambrosius, St. Chrosostom, St. Cyrillius, Tactantius, Tertullian, and
several others, gravely maintain that giants were the favoured offsprings
of holy maidens and angels. This may seem an impious conclusion, since the
gigantic monsters of sacred history were any thing but angelic; for the
Canaaneans, the Moabites, and the sons of Anak, descended from giants,
(compared with whom the Israelites seemed as grasshoppers,) were most
ferocious, and their land devoured its inhabitants; (though Neuman gives a
different signification to the scriptural passage, which according to his
paraphrase merely meant "that the number of inhabitants was so great, that
they eat up all the land;") Og, king of Bashan, whose country was
delivered into the hands of Israel, had an iron bedstead nine cubits in
length and four cubits in breadth; and Goliath, the reproach of Israel,
was six cubits and a span (which according to Cumberland makes eleven feet
English) in stature. It is therefore difficult to imagine why so many
saints considered giants as an angelic progeny.
To the present day, however, we find various races distinguished by their
elevated stature. Humboldt says, that the Guayaquilists measure six feet
and a half, and the Payaguas are equally tall, while the Caribbees of
Cumana are distinguished by their almost gigantic size from all the other
nations he had met with in the New World. Hearne saw in the cold regions
north of Canada individuals of six feet four inches. The Patagonians, or
Tehuels, were stated by Pigafitta and the Spanish early navigators as
measuring seven feet four inches; and although it appears that this
account is exaggerated, more recent travellers, amongst whom we may name
Bougainville, Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Carteret, and Falkner,
affirm that their height ranges from six to seven feet.
From the best authenticated observations, it appears that the tallest
persons on respectable record, did not, according to Haller, exceed nine
feet. A young man from Huntingdonshire was exhibited in London, and
measured about eight feet at the age of seventeen; he was, as usual, born
of the ordinary size, but began to grow most rapidly; his sister was of
great height, and all his family were remarkably tall.
Dwarfs generally die from premature old age, and giants from exhaustion. A
curious instance of marvellous growth is recorded in a tract called
"_Prodigium Willinghamense_," or an account of a surprising boy who was
born at Willingham, near Cambridge, and upon whom the following epitaph
was written:--"Stop, traveller, and wondering, know, here buried lie the
remains of Thomas, son of Thomas and Margaret Hall; who, not one year old,
had the signs of manhood; at three, was almost four feet high, endued
with uncommon strength, a just proportion of parts, and a stupendous
voice; before six, he died as it were at an advanced age." Mr. Dawker, a
surgeon of St. Ives, Huntingdon, who published this account, viewed him
after death, and the corpse exhibited all the appearances of decrepit old
age. This is a confirmation of the case of the boy of Salamis, mentioned
by Pliny as being four feet high, and having reached puberty at the age of
three; and may also confirm the account of the man seen by Craterus, the
brother of Antigonus, who in seven years was an infant, a youth, an adult,
a father, an old man, and a corpse.
The experiment of Dr. Berkeley, bishop of Cloyne, to ascertain the
influence of food in promoting extraordinary growth, is curious. He
selected for this purpose an orphan child of the name of Macgrath; and, by
dint of feeding, at the age of sixteen he had grown to the height of seven
feet; but his organization had been so exhausted by this forced process,
that he died in a state of moral and physical decay at the age of twenty.
In the development of organized bodies, the effects of light contribute
materially. Dr. Edwards, an English physician in Paris, and one of our
most distinguished physiologists, has shown that by excluding tadpoles
from the light, they will grow to double and triple their ordinary size,
but are not metamorphosed into frogs. He thinks that the _Proteus
Anguinis_ is the first stage of an animal prevented from growing to
perfection by inhabiting the subterraneous waters of Carniola.
The influence of food on the changes of animals is further shown in the
aphidivorous flies, that are larvae for eight or ten days, pupae for about a
fortnight, and perfect insects in about the same time, in the whole living
about six weeks; whereas a pupa deprived of food underwent no change, and
lived for twelve months. Rapid development of the organism invariably
brings on premature dissolution. A case is recorded of a girl who cut four
teeth at the end of the first fortnight; walked about, and had hair
reaching to the middle of her back after the seventh month; exhibited
signs of puberty at the ninth month, but perished in a state of exhaustion
in her twelfth year. Dr. Comarmond, of Lyons, relates the case of a female
infant, who was perfectly developed at the age of twenty-seven months,
but she sank under rachitis when she had attained her twelfth year.
Precocious mental attainments are frequently as destructive of life as a
rapid growth. The wonderful Baratier, at the age of four, spoke and read
Latin, French, and German; was an excellent Greek scholar at six; and when
ten years of age, translated the Scriptures from the Hebrew; at nineteen
he died of exhaustion. The vulgar saying, "The child is too clever to
live," is founded upon observation. These early specimens of superior
intellect are sometimes followed by a state of imbecility. Antiochus tells
us that Hermogenes, who was a celebrated rhetorician at fourteen years,
was ignorant in the extreme at twenty-four; and of him it was said,
In pueritia senex, in senectute puer.
Tall men generally produce children of high stature. The celebrated
grenadier guards of Frederick William, in the words of Dr. Johnson,
"_propagated procerity_;" and the inhabitants of Potsdam are remarkable
for their height. Haller states that his own family were distinguished by
their tallness, without excepting one single grandchild, although they
were very numerous.
In the hereditary transmission of physical and moral qualities, many
curious observations have been made. Women of high mental attainments have
been known to produce children of genius, more frequently than men of a
superior intellect; although Haller relates the singular case of two noble
females who married wealthy idiots on account of their fortunes, and from
whom this melancholy defect had extended for a century into several
families, so that some of all their descendants still continued idiots in
the fourth and fifth generation. Horace had observed this tendency to
produce offsprings resembling their parents,
Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis:
Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum
Virtus: nec imbellem feroces
Progenerant aquilae columbam.
This remark, however, is more applicable to physical transmissions, and
certain peculiarities characterize whole families. Pliny mentioned
examples of six-fingered families, who bore the name _Sedigita_. C.
Horatius had two daughters with a similar deformity. Mr. Carlisle knew a
family in which supernumerary toes and fingers were observed for four
generations: they were introduced by a female who had six fingers on each
hand, and as many toes on each foot. From her marriage with a man
naturally formed, were produced ten children, with a supernumerary member
on each limb; and an eleventh, in which the peculiarity existed in both
feet and one hand, the other hand being naturally formed. The latter
marrying a man of ordinary formation, they had four children, of which
three had one or two limbs natural, and the rest with the supernumerary
parts; while the fourth had six fingers on each hand, and as many toes on
each foot. The latter married a woman naturally formed, and had issue by
her eight children; four with the usual structure, and the same number
with the additional fingers and toes: two of them were twins, of which one
was naturally formed, and the other six-fingered and six-toed.--The
well-known porcupine family, that were exhibited in London and elsewhere,
is a remarkable example of hereditary transmission of organic
peculiarities. They were all covered with dark-coloured horny
excrescences, which they shed annually in the autumn or winter. Their
names were Lambert. Two brothers, John and Richard, grandsons of the
original porcupine men, were shown in Germany.--One of these unsightly
individuals, who was exhibited some time ago in Bond-street, stated that
he was descended from the fourth generation of a savage found in the woods
of America; and he further asserted that the females of the family were
exempted from this lucrative but uncomfortable peculiarity: all the males
had them, and shed them regularly until the thirty-sixth year, when these
species of quills grew to a considerable length. We have examples of
bristly hair being shed in a whole family every autumn.
Amongst animals, gigantic races no longer inhabit the regions which bore
them in ancient times. An extensive whale-fishery was once carried on at
Biariz, in the Gulf of Gascony; and the hippopotamus is no longer to be
seen on the banks of the Nile.
Gigantic bones having been occasionally discovered with the remains of men
and horses and fragments of armour, it has been imagined that in ancient
times armies were attended by terrific giants; but it is more than
probable that these large fragments of departed warriors belonged to
their war-elephants, which with their horses were not unfrequently
immolated on their master's tomb.
Skeletons of giants were considered by the ancients as curious as in the
present day; and those of Secondilla and Pusio were carefully preserved in
the gardens of Sallust.
Some naturalists have maintained that giants had more numerous vertebrae
than ordinary men; but this has not been confirmed by observation, nor has
it been found that the spinal bones of dwarfs are in smaller number.
Schreber, who has collected the description of the principal modern
giants, found few above seven feet and a half; although he mentions a
Swedish peasant of eight feet Swedish measure, and one of the guards of
the Duke of Brunswick eight feet six inches Dutch. Not so Hakewell, who
informs us, from the testimony of Nannez, that the Emperor of China had
archers and porters fifteen feet high. Howbeit, Ol. Magnus's account
surpasses his; for he tells us of a "_puella--in capite vulnerata, mortua
induta chlamyde purpurea, longitudinis cubitorum 50, latitudinis inter
humeros quatuor_!"