THE FATTEST MAN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 254, 18 June 1932, Page 3

THE FATTEST MAN

AMERICAN CLAIMS A MAN WHO WEIGHS OVER 56 STONE. FAT BUT PEACEFUL. America, which has so frequently claimed possessibn of the biggest or the tallest this or that, now boasts the fattest man. And not only the fattest in the world, but "the fattest that ever fived, so far as we know," states "Current Science." The great man lives in Los Angeles, and weighs 7871b. (56st, 31b.) Daniel Lambert, who lived in. England and died in 1809, weighed only 7391b: ''Miss Ima Whale," of the Ringling Circus, probably the world's fattest woman, _tips the scales at 6301b. What makes such people fat — or any fat persons, for that matter — is thus • explained by the paper quoted: "There is nothing dangerous about Harry R — , a citizen of California, 23 years old, six feet one inch in height, who weighs 7871b. He would not harm anybody — unless he fell on him. Harry is the heaviest human bedng ever weighed. "Why is Harry so fat, and at the same time good-natured? Right at the base of the brain, in a tiny niche of the skull's floor, a soft gland is fitted. Blood circulates through it, but no tube leads from it; hence, it is known as a ductless gland. Its particular name is the pituitary; the word is applied because of the old idea that the' saliva o'f the mo'uth was distilled from' this 1 gland. A juiee is manufactured within its tissues, after all, and influences the body far more than any mere liquid upon the tongue could do. Harry's Complaint. . "The secretion of the pituitary which is absorbed into the blood eontrols the growth of the body in a most definite fashion. It regulates the amount of food that will he assimilated after digestion, and when acting properly it permits about the right amount of fat to be deposited ' under the skin to make us plump. . "If the gland is over-active the fat ji is burned up by the body's heat and || energy, and the person is slendeo*. Such a one may eat and eat, and eat, II yet never graduate from the [ 'skinny' class. ■ "If the gland is under-active the fat is not burned, but is deposited ; beneath the skin. This is what is [ the matter with Harry R— ; he may I deny himself food to the point of • weakness, yet what little he does I t'ake turns to fat and refuses to leave 1 the body. Exercise to the limit of J endurance and constant hunger would remove but a few pounds of ; the 787 he p&ssesses."