Word: elephantic
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In fact, any large building erected during the late 1950s or '60s is likely to be an oil-thirsty white elephant, particularly the glass-box skyscrapers that sprouted in New York and other big cities. "Cheap oil made us very lazy," admits the illustrious Philip Johnson, 73, who with the...
Quasimodo probably had it. Digger Barnes of the television soap opera Dallas has developed the symptoms. In real life the most famous victim was John Merrick, the grotesquely deformed "Elephant Man," who became a sought-after celebrity in Victorian England.
The affliction is neurofibromatosis, a terrifying and, so far, incurable neurological disorder usually accompanied by varying degrees of deformity. Though most Americans had not heard of it before the Dallas episodes, or before The Elephant Man, a play about Merrick, opened in New York City this year, the ailment is...
The first signs of neurofibromatosis usually appear in childhood: small, brown skin discolorations known as café au lait spots. Later, neurofibromas-ugly but benign skin tumors that can grow to look like brown cauliflower-may form anywhere on the body, particularly on the back, chest and abdomen. In severe...
Merrick, who had both external and internal signs of the disease, was so shockingly deformed that producers of The Elephant Man wisely decided against using any grotesque makeup for the actor in the title role; Merrick's appearance is merely suggested by the actor's body language and...