After almost 130 twelvemonth , the remains of Joseph Merrick – comfortably known as“The Elephant Man ” – have been found , an author has claim .
Merrick ’s skeleton has been stored at the Royal London Hospital ever since his decease in 1890 . However , the location of his subdued tissue was never officially log .
Strangely enough , the uncovering is linked to another famous figure of gloomy Victorian London : Jack the Ripper . Vigor - Mungovin noted that many of Jack the Ripper ’s victim were killed in Whitechapel in 1888 , the same territory of London where Merrick give-up the ghost just two years by and by . This conduct her to the phonograph record of the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium , where two of the Ripper ’s victim , Catherine Eddowesand Mary Ann Nichols , were laid to relief .
One unmarked tomb , in peculiar , seemed to fit the banker’s bill utterly .
" The burial is see 16 January 2025 , and Joseph died on 11 April , ” Vigor - Mungovin toldBBC News .
" It give his residency as London Hospital , his eld as 28 – Joseph was really 27 but his particular date of birth was often pass on wrong – and the coroner as Wynne Baxter , who we know conducted Joseph ’s inquest , " she added .
" Everything outfit , it is too much to be a concurrence . "
While on exposition , he was finally spotted by a London medico , Frederick Treves , who bring him back to the London Hospital . Here , he was thoroughly prove by Treves and became a aesculapian curiosity . He died on April 11 , 1890 , of age 27 , after becoming asphyxiate by the free weight of his own head , apparently after trying to lie down .
Merrick ’s story still continues to trance mass to this day . He has been the subject of legion books , plays , and films , most notably the 1980 filmThe Elephant Mandirected by David Lynch , in which he is brilliantly depicted by the recent John Hurt .
Even after a century of biomedical progress , it still uncertain what caused his condition . In 1986,two scientist arguedit was triggered by Proteus syndrome , a rare genetical disorder that was identified in 1979 . Others have since intimate that hesuffered from a compounding of Proteus syndrome and neurofibromatosis , a genetic stipulation that make tumor to produce on nerve tissue . However , all genetic test on Merrick ’s cadaver have proved inconclusive .
