anthropometaphors

Laloo, a man with a conjoined twin attached at the thorax

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the two-headed calf, I found a book recently published by Oxford University Press called Freaks of Nature. The book is purported to be a scientific review of physical anomalies and what they teach us about biological development and evolution. A selection of images taken from the book  — ike the one of Laloo shown above — can be found in the image gallery on the New Scientist website.

References can be found describing people born with physical abnormalities as monsters or — as in the title of the book — freaks. There is a difference between having an anomaly and being anomalous; despite one’s physical condition we are all human. Which reminds me of a poem from Shel Silverstein’s book, The Light in the Attic:

When You Turn Off The Light
Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We’re all the same size
When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We’re all worth the same
When we turn off the light.

Red, black or orange
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.

So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!

– Shel Silverstein