Claude Ambroise Seurat was born at Troyes, in the department of Champaigne, on the 10th of April, 1797, and is now therefore twenty-eight years of age. His parents were respectable, but poor, and neither of them presented any deformity, or uncommon appearance; on the contrary, they are stated to have enjoyed robust health. The child on coming into the world, presented the customary baby form, but in proportion as the infant grew, the frame gradually wasted away, and so continued to decrease until the attainment of its full stature, which occurred at the usual term of life, at which period Claude had attained his present height, while his frame had dwindled to the skeleton form which it now so decidedly presents.
In France, where he ate very little of any animal food, a penny French roll was enough for a day’s sustenance; but as he now partakes of a small quantity of animal diet, his bread is reduced accordingly.
As regards his feeding, those dishes which afford most nourishment satisfy him the quickest; and two or three ounces a day are quite sufficient.
In France he was accustomed to drink the wine of his country; but in England he partakes of wines greatly diluted with water, finding the liquors here so much stronger, as the Champaigne he usually drank was what is denominated vin de pays, or small wine, of which there is none in this country. In eating, he masticates his victuals very much, taking small pieces, as the passage to the stomach would not admit of any great repletion, and in drinking the same precaution is required, otherwise suffocation would ensue. His digestion is extremely good, and the consequent functions of nature are regularly performed.
It is a singular fact, that such is the extreme sensitiveness of this almost nondescript, or sport of nature, that when touched on the left side with the finger, the surface of the body, to a certain extent, is observed to manifest its sympathy, by an involuntary chill, which contracts the pores, and produces that roughness of surface vulgarly known by the denomination of goose’s skin. In raising either of his feet from the floor, the limb appears to be distended uselessly from the knee, and we cannot better illustrate the idea than by that sensation we commonly experience upon allowing a limb to remain too long in one position, thereby causing a temporary strangulation of the vessels, known by the common term of the foot being asleep.
Previous to the arrival of Seurat in England, the French physicians who had inspected him, gave it as their opinion, that his lungs were placed in a different position to that usually occupied in the human frame.
Since his arrival, sir Astley Cooper, by whom he has been visited, finds that his heart is placed so much out of the common region allotted to it, that it is precisely its own length lower than if properly placed.
Many attempts were made to have Claude Ambroise Seurat presented to the French king; but the father conceiving that he might be consigned to some wretched asylum, there to subsist upon a miserable pension, uniformly objected to it. From the statements made by the father, it appears that the French gentlemen of the faculty, who visited his son, handling him roughly, and pinching him in every direction, the son refused to see them at all afterwards, and thus imbibed such a distaste for his professional countrymen, that he determined not to show himself to them any more. In consequence, the Parisian Ecole de Medicine has never been made acquainted with his existence.
Many proposals made to the father for the purchase of the body of his son, Claude Ambroise Seurat, in the event of his demise, were uniformly rejected. A medical gentleman particularly, in Burgundy, offered a carte blanche, which the parent, with feelings highly honourable to himself, refused, stating his determination, that in the event of his son’s demise, he should be peaceably consigned to the cemetery of his native city. While at Rouen, no less than one thousand five hundred persons flocked in one day to see Seurat on his road to England.
The health of this singular being has been very good. His respiration is somewhat confined, being the necessary result of a contraction of the lungs; yet, upon the whole, he does not appear to be much inconvenienced on that account, in consequence of the little exercise he takes, and the quiescent state of the animal system.