Genre:

Abstract

Publications abstracted:

J Drexelius Mercure de France

Subjects:

Monstrosities, Display

    Details a 'hideous form of human traffic carried on in China, by which human beings are transformed into the semblance of animals for purposes of exhibition. The skin is taken from the whole surface of the body, and replaced with the skins of animals, generally bears and dogs, an operation lasting a long time and causing intolerable agony. The victim is then made dumb to complete the illusion and to take away all possibility of complaint'. Records the case of one Chinese man whose 'whole body was covered with the skin of a dog', but who could 'stand and sit, make inarticulate sounds, and generally act as a rational being', and also notes that a 'still more horrible means of obtaining human monsters is by grafting infants on to grown men, the blood vessels being joined'.