Victorian spectacle: Julia Pastrana, the bearded and hairy female.
Julia Pastrana toured Europe in the late 1850s advertising herself as the 'Bearded and hairy Lady' or 'Nonedescript'. She suffered from a rare inherited disorder, not understood until the late 20th century, which manifested itself in facial distortion and considerable facial hair in the male pattern. Doctors, as well as sensation seekers, were very keen to examine her. Her story is unusual, not least because she was mummified after death by her husband-manager and continued to tour as a mounted exhibit for a number of decades. Indirectly, she participated in the evolutionary debate in Britain. In 1857, when she arrived in Britain from America, she was popularly known as the baboon-woman. When Darwin's Origin of Species was published, and evolutionary controversy about ape-ancestry was hot in the air, she was more often likened to the gorilla or orang-utan - as a possible specimen of a missing link.
Browne
Janet
J
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 24 Eversholt Street, NW1 1AD London, UK. s.messenger@ucl.ac.uk
Messenger
Sharon
S
D005075:Biological Evolution; D005060:Europe; D005145:Face / Q000002:abnormalities; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D005885:Gingival Hyperplasia / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D006983:Hypertrichosis / Q000151:congenital / Q000266:history*