title: Acromegalic gigantism, physicians and body snatching. Past or present?
abstract: The skeletons of 2 famous acromegalic giants: Charles Byrne (1761-1783) and Henri Cot = Joseph Dusorc (1883-1912) and the embalmed body of the famous acromegalic giant Édouard Beaupré (1881-1904) all ended up in the medical collections of museums despite the fact that these patients had never donated or even refused to donate their corpses, nor had their relatives given permission. The corpse of the acromegalic giant John Aasen (1890-1938) was voluntarily donated to a physician annex collector of trivia from acromegalic giants. The autopsy on the acromegalic giant John Turner (1874-1911) was performed during his funeral ceremony without the relatives being informed. Only recently, the acromegalic giant Alexander Sizonenko (1959-2012) was made a financial offer during his life in exchange for his body after his death. The case-histories of these 6 patients and also the circumstances that led to the (in-) voluntary donation of their bodies are reviewed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Sector of Endocrinology, Erasmus MC, 's Gravendijkwal 230, 3015 CE, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. w.w.deherder@erasmusmc.nl
authors.forename: Wouter W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: de Herder
mesh_terms: D000172:Acromegaly / Q000266:history; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005197:Famous Persons; D005877:Gigantism / Q000266:history; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010820:Physicians