#WondersOfNature: The Story Of Charles Byrne, The Irish Giant

Charles Byrne (1761–1783) or "The Irish Giant", was a man regarded as a curiosity or freak in London in the 1780s due to his large stature. Byrne's exact height is of some conjecture. Some accounts refer to him as being 8 ft 2 in (2.49 m) to 8ft 4in (2.54m) tall, but skeletal evidence places him at just over 7ft 7in (2.31m).

✓ Guess What Happened After His Death In 1783
Byrne was living in London at the same time as the pre-eminent surgeon and anatomist John Hunter. Hunter had a reputation for collecting unusual specimens for his private museum, and Hunter had offered to pay Byrne for his corpse. As Byrne's health deteriorated, and knowing that Hunter wanted his body for dissection (a fate reserved at that time for executed criminals) and probable display, Byrne devised a plan. He made express arrangements with friends that when he died his body would be sealed in a lead coffin and taken to the coastal town of Margate and then to a ship for burial at sea. Byrne's wishes were thwarted and his worst fears realised when Hunter arranged for the cadaver to be snatched on its way to Margate.

Hunter then reduced Byrne's corpse to its skeleton and four years later put Byrne's skeleton on display in his Hunterian Museum. His 2.31-m (7 ft 7 in) skeleton was purchased in 1799 by the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London and it was then displayed for nearly two centuries.
In 2011 calls were made in the British Medical Journal by Len Doyal, Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics at Queen Mary, University of London, and law lecturer Thomas Muinzer to put an end to the unethical display of Byrne's skeleton at the museum and for it to be buried at sea "as Byrne intended for himself". The article argued that Byrne's DNA had been taken and could be used in further research, but that it was now time to respect Byrne's burial wishes and attempt to morally rectify what happened.

✓ Why was Charles Byrne That Tall?
The American surgeon Harvey Cushing studied Byrne's bones in 1909 and found that Byrne had had a pituitary tumour based on an enlarged pituitary fossa. In 2011, British and German researchers determined the cause of Byrne's gigantism. They extracted DNA from Byrne's teeth and found that he had a rare mutation in his AIP gene that is involved in pituitary tumours. The researchers also found that four contemporary families living in Northern Ireland which have a history of related pituitary disorders also carried this mutation. The researchers inferred that Byrne and these families had a common ancestor about 57 to 66 generations ago (1425 to 1650 years ago).
— Adapted From Wikipedia
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