Reminiscences of The Elephant Man

by Frederick Treves

Tragic as the life of Joseph Merrick was, Sir Frederick Treves' compassion for and friendship with the Elephant Man is to be celebrated. Though the doctor's studies couldn't cure his patient, the time that Treves spent with him revealed a side of Merrick that had been hidden away. The Elephant Man's intellect, joy in the little things, and positive attitude despite his challenges were a triumph of humanity. This text is reprinted from Treves' 1923 book, The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences . The newspaper articles that follow share additional details of Merrick's life and death.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Science, Society, Historical, 19th Century

72 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

Sir Frederick Treves, Bt, GCVO, CH, CB, LL.D, FRCS

Reviews

[Come Musica]

Lo sguardo degli altri altera il modo in cui noi guardiamo a noi stessi. E vale anche il viceversa: il modo in cui noi guardiamo a noi stessi, determina il modo in cui gli altri ci guardano.

L’Uomo elefante, nel suo essere mostruoso, mi ha fatto venire in mente Frankenstein di Mary Shelley.

“L’Uomo Elefante non poteva farsi vedere per strada. Sarebbe stato aggredito dalla folla, e fermato dalla polizia. Era costretto a vivere isolato dal mondo, come l’Uomo dalla maschera di ferro.”

Questa mostruosità percepita dagli altri, lo rende iper sensibile e quando finalmente viene trattato da essere umano ed è accarezzato, l’emozione è tanta che scoppia a piangere.

Voleva essere solo come tutti gli altri. Era precipitato nell’abisso degli inferi, ma il suo spirito non ne era uscito deformato.

[Jena]

"عندما تصبح الشفقة أمنية، واللمسة الحانية سببًا للبكاء، تدرك أن أشد آلام الإنسان ليست في مرضه، بل في نبذ العالم له."
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
القصة دي مش تأليف دي حكاية حقيقية 100% كتبها دكتور وجراح بريطاني اسمه فريدريك تريفيس من واقع مذكراته وشغله في القرن الـ 19 الأحداث بتدور حولين شاب اسمه جوزيف ميريك نصيبه إنه اتولد بتشوهات مرعبة وغريبة جدا في جسمه وشكل راسه المجتمع وقتها مرحموش وكانوا بيعاملوه كأنه مسخ وبيشغلوه في سيرك عشان الناس تتفرج عليه بفلوس وتخاف
نقطة التحول ف القصة دي بتبدأ لما الدكتور تريفيس بيقرر ينقذه من الذل ده وبياخده يعيش في أوضة خاصة بمستشفى لندن هناك الكل بيتفاجأ إن ورا الشكل المشوه ده في بني آدم ذكي جداً روحه طيبة ويعشق القراءة والأدب
ومن هنا بتبدأ القصة
القصه دي وجعتلي قلبي بشكل غريب والنهاية مؤثره اوي
هتبقي من مفضلاتي

[Suvi]

My only reason for picking this up was, of course, Joseph (here named John) 'Elephant Man' Merrick. I first became aware of him when I saw the heartbreaking Lynch movie, so naturally I couldn't miss a first-hand account from the doctor who took care of him. I didn't expect, however, the writing to be so vivid and engaging. I was fully prepared for dry-ish essays which would perhaps include a lot of medical details, but instead they are almost in a form of a short story.

There are twelve essays altogether. Treves mostly recounts his experiences with different patients and occasionally starts musing about varied things. Like with most collections, not all of the writings managed to keep me interested, but the overall quality was great.

The Receiving Room describes the age in the mid-19th century before ambulance service. The image is powerful: people who accompany the wounded move like a wave towards the London Hospital and have to be stopped by the porter, two drunken and brawling women covered in blood, one efficient nurse who can handle all kinds of things also likes swigs of gin now and then but is always extremely professional. The unhygienic conditions and the prevalence of sepsis make you grateful of the efforts of the 21st century.

A Cure for Nerves is the story of a woman in her own words, a woman whose situation was much too common back in the day. She is a neurotic woman. Her husband is unsympathetic. He claims her ailments are imaginary and that the illness is a grievance to himself. He's sick of her moanings, and that she's perfectly fine because he is fine (what a load of horseshit logic). All she has to do is pull herself together! He also humiliates her in front of their friends, so he's just an all-round perfect spouse. When she visits a doctor and later remembers the letter that he wrote to recommend her as a patient to another, she finds that in the letter the doctor completely undermines her. The beginning is incredibly depressing but eventually the woman is forced to face her fears and miraculously gets better. Not sure how I feel about that, but an interesting piece nevertheless.

Two Women continues with the sombre mood when Treves examines the traits of her female patients. One of them is a suburban woman who keeps her breast cancer a secret as long as she can to save her husband from grief. The other one is a Whitechapel woman, whose drunk husband beats her (but not much, because then she obviously wouldn't be able to earn a living and support her family). The husband ends up torching his wife during a heated argument, and just before she dies she claims it was an accident.

Now that I'm writing my review a couple of days after finishing the collection, I realize that there's a lot of sadness running through it. There is hope too, like when a patient recovers and personally comes to thank Treves for saving his life, but the melancholy that comes from death, injuries, and broken hearts can't be ignored.

A few times Treves goes into another direction entirely. For example, in one essay he describes a nightmare he once had in India (which reads like a proper horror story), and in another one he discusses the topic of afterlife and apparitions, and makes notes of astronomer Camille Flammarion's article "At the Moment of Death". It appears that Treves didn't believe in the supernatural, but instead leans towards thinking that apparitions don't appear to people that are healthy mentally and physically. He does admit, though, that a negative experience (not seeing anything that would confirm Flammarion's claims) is not an argument. He just simply hasn't seen anything yet.

Despite liking the other essays as well, the one I will remember forever is obviously The Elephant Man. Treves's attitude felt off-putting at first, since he doesn't shy away from constantly poking at Merrick's deformities, calling him "the most disgusting specimen of humanity" he had ever seen and "a perverted object". It's understandable that someone like Merrick might provoke a reaction of some kind from others, but it was uncomfortable to read it from Treves. The tone did change later, when Treves realized Merrick was actually a lot smarter than he seemed.

Never in all his life had Merrick anyone to talk to, but he longed for conversations. He also became an avid reader and ended up loving romances the most (he understood the type of Treves's house in the context of Jane Austen's Emma). The one thing everyone should know about Joseph Merrick, though, is his child-like adoration of things that were taken for granted by others. He went into the theatre and treated everything he saw as something that belonged to the real world, and enjoyed everything he did very deeply. He burst into tears when he met the first woman who had ever smiled to him and shaken his hand.

There is undoubtedly embellishment in all of Treves's essays, and in The Elephant Man he makes it seem like Merrick was a prison of sorts in the Mile End shop, when in fact Merrick himself proposed the owner that he should be exhibited. Still, the core of the story is inspiring. Merrick was taken care of for the rest of his life (thanks to an abundance of donations from the public) and he learned to function in the society. It's unclear what people really thought about him (whether he was still considered an oddity or even a pet), but he seemed to enjoy himself.

His last wish was to see the countryside. The image of him sitting on a field in the sun and gathering violets... That will always be how I'll remember him.

"It would be reasonable to surmise that he would become a spiteful and malignant misanthrope, swollen with venom and filled with hatred of his fellow-men, or, on the other hand, that he would degenerate into a despairing melancholic on the verge of idiocy. Merrick, however, was no such being. He had passed through the fire and had come out unscathed. His troubles had ennobled him. He showed himself to be a gentle, affectionate and lovable creature, as amiable as a happy woman, free from any trace of cynicism or resentment, without a grievance and without an unkind word for anyone. I have never heard him complain. I have never heard him deplore his ruined life or resent the treatment he had received at the hands of callous keepers."

[Richard]

"The Elephant Man and Other Reminisces" (1923) by Sir Frederick Treves is most famous for the title essay and this is indeed a memorable piece. It was Treves himself who found the terribly disfigured John Merrick living in the most deplorable conditions and being displayed as "The Elephant Man" by an unscrupulous showman.

In the event Treves rescued Merrick and was responsible for the generally happy life that the latter had for the final five years of his life. Many interesting books have since been written about this unfortunate man but the account by Treves remains a moving and powerful work.

But this is only the first of twelve chapters, each devoted to a different reminiscence from the Doctor' s career. Taken as a whole, they present a wide spectrum of Victorian and Edwardian life.

It is a pity that a good ebook version of the book isn't available. There is a copy on Amazon Kindle but this is little more than a page-by-page scan and not very convenient to read. However, it is possible to get a reasonable PB for a low price.

[Seregnani]

« Mi ero fatto l'idea che Merrick fosse imbecille, e lo fosse dalla nascita.
Era una supposizione fondata su quel volto privo di espressione, su quelle parole biascicate, su quell'atteggiamento che lasciava intravedere una mente incapace di emozioni o di pensieri.
Stiamo parlando di un uomo nel fiore della giovinezza, ma così orribilmente deforme da provocare, in chiunque lo incontrasse uno sguardo di disgusto.
Ma le spaventose dimensioni della sua tragedia mi sono state chiare solo quando ho capito che Merrick era intelligentissimo, straordinariamente sensibile e molto incline alle fantasie, specie di carattere sentimentale.».


3,5 ⭐️ Merrick, un essere col cervello di un uomo, le fantasie di un ragazzo e l’immaginazione di un bambino che voleva solo essere «come gli altri».

[SusyG]

Se avete visto il film di David Lynch ve lo consiglio tantissimo ✨ è un libricino che racconta la storia vera di John Merrick, uomo affetto dalla Sindrome di Proteo, che porta gravi deformazioni nel corpo. Frederick Treves è il dottore che lo scoprì e che successivamente lo portò via dalle esposizioni pubbliche. È molto bello leggere di come Merrick, almeno nell'ultima parte della sua vita, potè vivere tranquillamente senza essere usato come un fenomeno da baraccone. E sono contenta che alcuni aspetti drammatici che c'erano nel film nella realtà non ci siano stati ❤️‍🩹

[cannella ✮]

“Aveva letto qualche racconto e sfogliato qualche sussidiario, ma la gioia della sua vita erano i romanzi, specie d’amore.”

Come la Creatura di Frankenstein, anche Joseph Merrick — l’Uomo Elefante — trovò rifugio nelle parole.
Il linguaggio e la letteratura gli donarono quella forma di umanità che il corpo, segnato dalla malattia e dagli sguardi giudicanti della folla, sembravano negargli.

Nella Londra vittoriana, tra paura e curiosità morbosa, la sua vita diventa un monito:
non è la deformità della carne a rendere mostri, ma l’incapacità di vedere la bellezza nascosta negli altri.

[Racheli Zusiman]

ד"ר פרֶדריק טְריווְס מספר על ג'ון מריק, "איש הפיל". ספר מעניין ואנושי. היה מרגש לקרוא כיצד לאחר שהד"ר פרש על מריק את חסותו, עוד אנשים מהחברה הבריטית סייעו לו ותמכו בו.

[Jessica Ravaioli]

Impossibile non sentirsi toccati da questo breve libro che racconta la storia di Joseph Merrick. Un classico del suo tempo dove le deformità fisiche diventavano pane per i freak show.
Nella sua semplicità questo racconto di una storia vera fa pensare e riflettere.

[madryds]

mi ha fatto odiare e ricredere nel genere umano nel corso di 30 pagine

[nina 💌🤍🦢]

“E così, alla fine, la causa della sua morte era stata proprio il patetico, disperato desiderio che aveva dominato tutta la sua vita – essere «come gli altri».” ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[dammydoc]

Frederick Treves: L’uomo elefante. Adelphi ed.

Novembre 1884. Nella strada di fronte al London Hospital c’è una fila di piccoli negozi. Uno di questi, che ha ospitato fino a qualche tempo prima un fruttivendolo, presenta la facciata coperta da un telo che lascia libera solo la porta d’ingresso. Sul telo è dipinta una immagine che sembra uscita da un incubo: rappresenta un uomo con le fattezze di un elefante, la cui trasformazione però appare essersi interrotta nelle fasi iniziali. L’ingresso per contemplare l’Uomo Elefante, è scritto sul telo, costa due penny. Il dottor Treves, che al London Hospital ci lavora, ha notato il telo e ha chiesto qualche informazione in giro: un ragazzo ha rintracciato rapidamente in un pub nei dintorni il proprietario, che, per uno scellino, ha acconsentito a far fare al medico una visita privata. In fondo alla stanza fredda e umida c’è una tovaglia rossa appesa a degli anelli; quando viene scostata, svela una figura sotto una coperta scura, a celargli la testa e la schiena, rannicchiata su una stuoia. Quando l’impresario urla a quella creatura di alzarsi, e la coperta cade, Treves si trova davanti l’essere umano più deforme che abbia mai visto. È la sua testa a colpire di più il clinico: enorme, con poche ciocche di capelli e una grande massa ossea che sembra originare dalla fronte, che copre quasi completamente un occhio. L’impresario gli rivela che l’Uomo Elefante si chiama in realtà John Merrick, e ha 21 anni…

“La cosa che lo spaventava di più era rimanere allo scoperto, esposto allo sguardo dei suoi simili”.

Frederick Treves, medico e chirurgo britannico, nasce a Dorchester nel 1853, si forma presso il prestigioso London Hospital, nella cui scuola di medicina diventa celebre come lettore di anatomia.

Si dedica per anni allo studio della patologia che oggi chiamiamo appendicite, e che lui definisce peritiflite, descrivendo l’infiammazione che coinvolge l’intestino cieco, di cui l’appendice è propaggine. La pratica chirurgica e la conoscenza della malattia gli consentono di drenare un ascesso appendicolare alla vigilia dell’incoronazione a re Edoardo VII. Eppure, non è il contributo alla scienza chirurgica a dare a Treves la fama. Nel 1923, poco prima della morte, avvenuta a Losanna, ove si è nel frattempo trasferito con la famiglia, Treves pubblica The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences. Ma chi è l’Uomo Elefante? Anche se Treves lo chiama John nel suo racconto, il suo vero nome è Joseph Carey Merrick, è nato nel 1862 a Leicester, ed è un uomo affetto da una rara condizione clinica che ne deturpa il corpo e il volto. Treves lo mostra alla Pathological Society e ne descrive il caso sul “British Medical Journal” nel 1884. Merrick è venuto al mondo sano, i sintomi della malattia hanno iniziato a manifestarsi nel corso dell’infanzia. Nel 1909 verrà suggerito che Merrick fosse affetto da neurofibromatosi; l’ipotesi diagnostica sarà confutata nel 1986 (https://www.bmj.com/content/293/6548/683), attribuendo ad una forma aggressiva di Sindrome di Proteo - in riferimento al dio greco in grado di mutare il proprio aspetto fisico - la condizione patologica dell’Uomo Elefante: una mutazione genetica ad insorgenza spontanea, somatica - non trasmessa dai genitori, non trasmissibile ad una eventuale prole - in grado di provocare una crescita incontrollata e disarmonica della pelle, delle ossa, dei vasi, assieme all’insorgenza di tumori.

Nel suo approfondito saggio Freaks - Miti e immagini dell’Io segreto (Il Saggiatore ed.), il critico Leslie Fiedler, oltre a definire Treves “il solo medico che sia mai riuscito a trarre prosa convincente dal mito dello scienziato amico del freak”, scrive: “i livelli più arcaici della nostra mente fanno pensare che queste creature non soltanto non siano dei brutti scherzi, né tanto meno dei prodotti di casuali alterazioni chimiche dei nostri geni, come ci hanno recentemente convinto a credere, ma dei segni premonitori - come suggerisce la più antica parola usata in inglese per definirli. Monster (mostro) è antico quanto la lingua stessa, ed è stato il nome con il quale si sono più spesso indicati i freaks dai tempi di Chaucer a quelli di Shakespeare e oltre. L’etimologia della parola è oscura, ma derivi essa da moneo, ammonisco, o da monstro, esibisco, il significato non cambia: le anormalità umane non derivano da un capriccio della natura, ma dal disegno della Provvidenza […] L’autentico freak suscita […] sia un terrore soprannaturale sia una naturale simpatia, perché, a differenza dei mostri mitologici, è uno di noi, un figlio umano di genitori umani, trasformato però da forze che noi non comprendiamo bene in qualcosa di mitico e di misterioso”.

Se oggi appare difficile anche solo immaginare l’utilizzo di esseri umani affetti da rare anomalie fisiche e difformità come attrazioni da circo o da luna park, negli anni sessanta del secolo scorso erano ancora settantacinque milioni gli americani che frequentavano i freak shows, scrive sempre Fiedler, portandoci a riflettere su quali abissi possa spalancarsi l’animo umano, e quale sia il reale gioco di proiezioni nascosto dalla morbosa attenzione conferita alle più devastanti deformità e alla mostruosità dell’Altro.

L’Uomo Elefante narra, nel corso di poche decine di pagine, di un incontro, di una inaspettata amicizia, della possibilità di superare i ruoli stabiliti. Da un lato espone la crudeltà di coloro che brutalmente si accaniscono, con i mormorii disgustati e lo sguardo impudico, su un essere privo di colpe, segnato da una sorte terribile fin dalla più tenera età; ma parla anche di empatia, della capacità di guardare oltre l’apparente, di vedere e riconoscere la radice più profonda dell’umanità nell’Altro. Sebbene nel testo si avverta inevitabilmente l’atmosfera moralistica dell’epoca vittoriana, quella di Joseph Merrick resta soprattutto una storia di dignità restituita, e di cura…

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https://www.mangialibri.com/luomo-ele...

[Zek]

לסיפורו של ״איש הפיל״, הלוא הוא ג׳וזף מריק, נחשפתי לראשונה עת צפיתי בסרטו הנפלא של פיטר לינץ׳ ובכיכובו של ג׳ון הארט הבלתי נשכח. לאחר מכן קראתי בעיתונות ובכל מקום אפשרי על סיפורו של האדם האומלל שסבל ממחלה נדירה שבעקבותיה גופו ופניו עוותו בצורה כה קשה עד כי אנשים לא יכלו לעמוד בפני המראה הנורא. מריק בילה את רוב שנותיו בכלוב ונוצל עד תום בידי אדם מרושע שהציגו בפני הציבור תמורת תשלום משל היה דוב בקרקס .. מיותר לציין שמריק האומלל היה יכול לאחל לעצמו את תנאיו של אותו דב...
הספר, אותו כתב פרדריק טריווס, אותו רופא שהצילו מציפורניו של אותו אמרגן מרושע, מתמקד בשיקומו על ידי המחבר ובחשיפתו אט אט בפני האצולה הבריטית באותם ימים שהתפעלה מאישיותו העדינה והמסקרנת.
מאחר שהספר ממש קצר אין לו ערך מוסף לעומת הסרט ובמובן הזה מדובר במשחק שאינו שווה כוחות. מי שראה את הסרט לא ישכחהו במהרה ומי שקרא את הספר...נו, אני מניח שהבנתם את הפואנטה...

[Noa Seidmann]

ספר קצר ומעניין. הייתי שמחה אם היה יותר פרטים ויותר עומק, מדובר יותר במאמר מאשר ספר.

[Luisa]

“E così, alla fine, la causa della sua morte era stata proprio il patetico, disperato desiderio che aveva dominato tutta la sua vita – essere «come gli altri».”

[Simona]

“E così, alla fine, la causa della sua morte era stata proprio il patetico, disperato desiderio che aveva dominato tutta la sua vita - essere come gli altri”

la rovina di tutti noi

[BEA]

Rilettura de “L’uomo elefante”.
È sempre triste leggere le parole del dottor Treves a proposito della crudele vita vissuta da Joseph Merrick, the elephant man.
La sua gravissima malformazione l’ha portato ad una vita crudele, disgraziata e odiata in primo luogo da sè stesso.

Questo è un piccolo libro della collana Microgrammi Adelphi ma vale la pena acquistarlo per conoscere qualcosa in più su Joseph che, prima di tutto, era un essere umano.

[Margherita Bigoni]

Merrick che guarda il mondo con gli occhi di un bambino...
Rimarrà sempre con me questa forza della natura che sento scorrere nella lettura di questo piccolo libretto.
E quando mi sentirò triste e incapace, lo rileggerò, con la speranza che un po' della sua sensibilità e amore per la vita rimanga attaccato a me.

[Fra]

Molto bello, l’autore è stato molto bravo a descrivere e raccontare la vita di “The elephant man”.

[Simone Cerino]

Storia incredibile e raccontata benissimo. Dolce e toccante.

[James Windale]

I found Dr. Treves’ book to be quite enlightening to the practice of physicians and surgeons during the overlap of Victorian and Edwardian England. There is a great deal of pretense given, and I certainly appreciated the manner in which he describes his approach and practice. I found some humor in the descriptions of the primitive emergency setting, and it was something to entertain the notion that emergency nurses come from a long a storied breed; not much seems to have changed in the ED nurse mentality since the 1890s.

The big story of this book is John/Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man. It is certainly the draw that will cause most readers to pick this book up. His is the story that will illustrate both the total depravity of man, though Mr. Merrick’s treatment by his ‘handlers’ and the viewing public, and also the capacity for humans to empathize and extend Christian love. Dr. Treves certainly extends overtures of his own faith, and the reader never gets the sense that, even as a man of his era, he views himself as better or on a higher level than anyone. He views all of his patients as being entitled to dignity and respect as God’s children.

Dr. Treves’ work is certainly worthy of study, and I heartily recommend his book. A quick read, it does. It linger on terminology and moves quite quickly.

[retrometro (ocelot’s version)]

also read this for school

[Francy]

Che fine dolorosa ❤️‍🩹

[Alberto]

Carino dai, brevissimo

[🐈‍⬛🎐]

4.5⭐️.

[Lara]

This is a collection of short reminiscences by Dr. Frederick Treves (1853-1923), made famous by his association with, and care for, Joseph Merrick ("The Elephant Man") and who was portrayed in the David Lynch feature film, "The Elephant Man", by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Treves was a highly-respected surgeon and this short work (222 pages) presents twelve essays by him on a number of topics.

Of course, his first essay concerns Merrick, and David Lynch took much of the factual material for his film from Treves' writings. He details how he met Merrick and how, after an examination by Treves, Merrick vanished, as the showman who was displaying him was run out of town by the police. Treves assumed he wouldn't see him again.

However, Merrick did return (after being taken on a tour by his showman/handler, who was again shut down by local authorities in both Brussels and Belgium, and who released Merrick to fend for himself.) Merrick, upon his arrival at the London train station, was mobbed by a curious and jeering crowd and was consequently frightened to death. Luckily, he had retained the card given to him by Treves after the doctor had examined him previously. After some kind policemen got him safely away from the crowd, Merrick showed it to them and Treves was sent for. He took Merrick to the London Hospital where, after a short stay, it was determined that he should live out his life there in comfort and safety.

It is truly a touching first-hand account of Mr. Merrick - what a gentle person he was, how fond he was of conversation, how he fell in love with just about any woman he saw because, being so ugly and ill-treated all his life, he tended to put them on pedestals in his imagination. Treves tells of the time it took before Merrick realized that, no, he wasn't going to be taken away somewhere else - as he was accustomed to all his life - and that the London Hospital was his home for life. He relates Merrick's wonder and delight at the entire world around him and, in the end, Treves tells of Merrick's death as he attempted to sleep lying down in a "desire to be 'like other people'".

The other eleven essays are no less well-written and fascinating and give the reader a glimpse into various medical topics and controversies of the time. They range from the tale, "The Idol With Hands of Clay", the story of a doctor who arrogantly thought of himself as a surgeon when he wasn't, with tragic consequences, to "The Old Receiving Room", a tale of a cold, harsh place where patients were received at a great accident hospital in east London. The room is described with such bluntness that one understands instantly why the poor hated and mistrusted hospitals and doctors. Instead of seeing them as sources of healing and help, they often turned out to be places where a loved one went in, but never came out - at least, alive.

This book is well worth reading and Treves' engaging, unpretentious prose is as enjoyable as a warm fireside chat with a doctor friend who's telling you about his working day. "The Elephant Man" might entice you to read the book initially, but if you allow it, that essay will lead you into the other eleven and you won't regret a minute spent with the good doctor.

[K.T.]

Often, the imagery conjured up by Victorian/Edwardian era writing is dark, gritty and stuffy. Especially when said stories take place in London, England, during the days when Joseph Merrik roamed the streets, Dickinsonian villains and heroes of Homlsian proportions made their way through the smog filled, gas-lit streets. The London of Frederick Treeves description, though, is none of those things. The tales the surgeon weaves, memories spun forth from a life well lived, are vibrant and full of warmth. To hear him speak of the strength of womenkind as they face the grave uncertainty of the knife, wry tales of mistaken hats and the madding crowd who paraded through his well-kept rooms, it ties you to the very human charges that were his daily life.

Yes, The Elephant Man will always be the focus of Treeve's known history, but his was a life of fantastic variation and, fortunately for us, we are offered a small glimpse of it. In the man's own words, no less! Such a wonderful read, thoroughly enjoyed.

[Roger]

Sir Frederick Treves (1853-1923) was 'serjeant-surgeon'(sic) to King Edward VII and was apparently a skilled and compassionate physician who gave Joseph Merrick(the Elephant Man)his dignity back and a sense of belonging in his final days. The account is told in a matter of fact way that becomes quite moving. The good doctor also wrote novels and in these reminiscences he reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft in the tale of "The Restless Night" and a little bit of P.G. Wodehouse in "A Question Of Hats". The writing style is a bit dated but pleasantly so and all in all I enjoyed it.

[Gail]

I read this because of a recent PBS special on the re-creation of the elephant man using his actual bones. Dr. Frederic Treves was quoted in the PBS special. I enjoyed the surgical stories and the way the doctor told the stories of his most memorable patients.

[Sef99]

Treves pone una narrazione eccelsa del suo incontro con john merrick e della vita difficile di questo uomo. il racconto di un clinico da un inestimabile valore umano che sa colpire il lato più sensibile ed emotivo persino di una mente puramente razionale.