GROWING HEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 2, 4 January 1932, Page 3

GROWING HEAD

STRANGE DISEASE

AUSTRALIAN'S FATE

Victim of a disease whiah:hasbaf-1 fled the world's mediqal brains, a Hurstvillo Digger has "swelled'head," I which means xiot vanity, says the "Daily Telegraph." Since the war, his head has grown 3J" inches larger; other bones, top, have grown, and will continue to grow. ~*Out of th« world's millions his,case is the twenty-fourth known, and,' strange coincidence, Alexander Stew- ] art, who was a mooring, officer at Gal-' lipoli, where the HuTstyille "Digger" also fought, was the twenty-third. The "Digger" went" through Anzac Cove perils and the Somme offensive, returning without a Boratch, and at Albany sought a new uniform hat. He asked for size 6 7-8; it would not fit. Neither would his new" civilian hat fit. ■ "I went round talking about 'mad hatters,' "he says. - , In 1927 he again, asked for size 6 7-8. i This time the hatter thought him mad, | for the hat had to be stretched wjll over size 7. From that time, began vio-1 lent headaches,, and all over his limbs ! agonies like severe growing pains. I He saw a doctor, but said nothing I about his head growing. "It seemed bo fantastic," he explained. He ■ turned down his city job, and went caravan dealing in the country, but after a few months' returned arid bought another hat. , LABGER. Each 1-8 in hats is half an inch, and the hat had now to be increased to 7i. His head had grown 1} inches. He had to sell his grocery shop at a big loss* because .the disease was beating him. His head kept growing, and the first idea of the pause came from a local doctor, who said: "Sehomberg's or Pargett's disease, I think." Hardening of the arteries has something to do with; it. The bones become brittle, and from this the complaint is sometimes called ♦'marble-bone disease." No cause or cure is known. A wile and six bonny Australians to support, the soldier thought1 a pension would be unobtainable, .because no doctor could say that his amazing complaint was a war disease. But just as he began to despair—his leg bones had begun to bow outward and forward, decreasing his height over 1} inchos!—came a special pension^ For no doctor could Bay that it was not a war disability. Now he is living the simple life—roaming in a caravan, fishing, sunbaking, "just lazing." But there is a'wistful look in his eyes as he says: "My,pains seem like those I hart when I got trench fever after standing waist deep in mud—