It makes your arms and legs short in comparison to your head and trunk. You may also have a larger head and weak muscle tone. Other genetic conditions, kidney disease, and problems with metabolism or hormones can also cause dwarfism. The conditions that cause dwarfism can also cause other health problems. Most of them are treatable. It is important to have regular checkups throughout your life.
With proper medical care, most people with dwarfism have active lives and live as long as other people. The information on this site should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or advice.
Contact a health care provider if you have questions about your health. Dwarfism Also called: Little person. Learn More Specifics Genetics. See, Play and Learn No links available. Resources Find an Expert. Start Here. Diagnosis and Tests. Owners would intentionally malnourish their slaves so they would sell for a higher price.
In ancient Greece, dwarfs were associated in a menacing and lurid way with the rituals of the Dyonisian cult; art from that period shows them as bald men with out-sized penises lusting after averaged-sized women. This same pattern of reverence and bondage also appears in China and West Africa, where LPs were so often servants of the king. Here there also may have been a level of fetishism; Emperor Hsuan-Tsung kept dwarf slaves in the harem he called the Resting Palace for Desirable Monsters.
There are tragic tales of court dwarfs and their wild antics. Ferry was given to King Sanislas when he was about five years old. The King promised his father he would be given the best education and medical care.
Ferry, who may have also had learning disabilities, was spoiled and terrorized the court with his antics—kicking the shins of servants and crawling up the skirts of ladies. He even threw a dog out of the window when he believed the Queen loved the dog more than him.
Nicolas Ferry dressed amusingly as a Roman soldier. She hoarded them in her vast palace along with art, classical writings, gold, and silver. She also tried to breed dwarfs and kept them in a series of specially designed rooms, with low ceilings and staircases to scale. This was more for their display than comfort.
The history of courts throughout Europe and Russia tell similar tales of dwarfs employed as jesters, or little more than pets—laughed at, loved, and never fully allowed to be human. As the age of monarchy ended, the era of medicine and medical curiosity arose to fill its place, often providing more opportunities for LPs.
Dwarfs were put on display—by others or themselves—for money. In a time where very few occupations were open to LPs, putting yourself on display in a freak show was at least a way to make a living. While traveling around provided LPs with more independence, it also opened them up to the gaping and insensitive curiosity of the public and medical professionals. In his book Freak Show , Robert Bogdan explains the phenomena of human exhibits, singling out the insular nature of communities as a leading cause.
Animals and humans that were outside of the norm were exciting curiosities; different races, ethnicities, and disabilities were all billed as novel entertainment. From these human exhibits came the growth of dime museums, midget villages, and Lilliputian touring communities, where many LPs rose to prominence. But while these exhibitions took center stage, several LPs made incredible, albeit quieter, contributions to history. There were people like Antoine Godeau, a poet and bishop best known for his works of criticism, or economist Ferdinando Galiani, one of the leading figures in the Enlightenment.
The list goes on. Yet even in this time, as many LPs grew to prominence, medicine was able to do little more than collect data.
Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor, kept an LP family of Romanian performers captive in Auschwitz, subjecting them to various tests and experiments that included pulling out teeth and hair specimens. For most of early history, the response of doctors to LPs was to measure everything—nose, hair, genitals. This meaningless collection of data is often accompanied by condescending notes on the appearance and intellect of the dwarf. The obsessive data collection reads like a stack of clues, wherein doctors hope to find an answer to the riddle of difference.
With nothing else to do, like the Egyptian pharaohs and the courts of kings, doctors found themselves staring too. In the absence of a cure, most early doctors focused on prevention. They believed that dwarfism was caused by the mother having seen another dwarf or animal. In fact, for most of medical history many disabilities and unexplained deformities were chalked up to maternal impressions.
Consequently, pregnant women often sequestered themselves away from their communities, acting like they themselves had a disability. With early genetic testing, many in the LP community are worried about unborn dwarfs being allowed to be born. This was due in part to Billy Barty, a film actor and television star who, in , organized a meeting of LPs in Reno, Nevada. This meeting eventually led to the founding of the Little People of America, a powerful non-profit that advocates for the rights of LPs in America.
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