Showing results by author "Frederick Treves" in All Categories

The Elephant Man is Treves' own firsthand account of how he met and befriended Joseph Merrick (whom he mistakenly calls John Merrick), a young man with very severe physical deformities, who was being exhibited as a sideshow freak, as half man, half elephant. Treves initially invited Merrick to his rooms in the London Hospital so as to examine him, and to ensure Merrick's admittance he gave him his card.

This is a story in Victorian England of how in 1884 Frederick Treves, Surgeon and Lecturer in Anatomy at the London Hospital arranged for the "Elephant Man" (whose distorted grotesque face and deformed body made him a "freak") to visit the medical college next to the hospital for the purpose of a lecture. They would later become friends and Treves the savior of the man named John Merrick. This is Treves' memoir.

Journey back to 1884 with Professor Treves as he shares captivating narratives from his medical practice, including his profound experience with Joseph Merrick, famously known as the Elephant Man. This engrossing book of memoirs not only tells the tale of Merrick, exhibited in a shop near the London Hospital, but also delves into the intriguing world of medical science during the Victorian era through various case studies. Follow Treves as he brings Merrick from the shop to the London Hospital and transforms his life, to his untimely demise in 1890.