Sicilian fairy Caroline Kratchami (7 photos)

Fairies in artistic creativity appear as ethereal, fragile, practically incorporeal, beautiful and magical creatures.





This girl, nicknamed the Sicilian Fairy for her appearance, clearly does not fit this description. But there was still something fairy in this amazing character.



The first person to receive a medical diagnosis of what we now call dwarfism was Caroline Kratchamy. The story of the Sicilian fairy is inspiring and tragic at the same time, depending on which side you look at her biography.

In any case, her story must be told, as it demonstrates the endless greed often inherent in ordinary people and tells the story of the careless exploitation of a small person.



Portrait of Caroline by Alfred Edward Chalon

The famous Sicilian dwarf, Caroline Cratchamy, who claims to be one of the smallest people in history, was born in Palermo, Sicily on November 15, 1815, according to a pamphlet entitled "Memoirs of Miss Crachamy." Allegedly, at birth, Caroline weighed only one pound (450 grams), and the baby was only eight inches tall (a little more than 20 centimeters - a real Thumbelina).

Caroline was the only unique child of five siblings, and despite claims about exhibitions in Palermo, Miss Crachamy first gained widespread fame during a visit to England in 1824. During the trip, Krachami was accompanied by a certain Dr. Gilligan, who acted as her agent and exhibited in Liverpool, Birmingham and Oxford, after which he took the ward to London, where she was exhibited in Mayfair.

The girl created a sensation and turned out to be incredibly popular. Hundreds of people lined up every day and paid one shilling entrance fee to look at the nine-year-old miracle, whose height did not even reach 50 centimeters. There was no show, actually. Little Crachamy just wandered around the stage listening to the music. For a few shillings you could talk to a tiny girl, dance with her a little, pat her on the head and feed her a biscuit.

King George IV himself was a fan of the baby, as were three hundred representatives of the English nobility. More than three thousand members of high society visited the exhibition and played with the living doll, and probably thousands more ordinary people also did so.



Skeleton Caroline

The exhibition schedule was grueling, and on June 3, 1824, after receiving more than two hundred visitors, the baby fell and died during the exhibition.

Dr. Gilligan showed the body to various doctors and then sold the remains to anatomist John Hunter for $500, which is where the story takes a tragic turn. Caroline Crachamy was a child much younger than the stated nine years of age. Modern examinations of the remains determine her age to be no more than three years. In addition, she was most likely not Sicilian and probably originated from Ireland.



Her father quickly arrived in England in an attempt to stop the autopsy. However, he arrived too late, and Caroline's remains had already been skeletonized.

Caroline Crachamy's skeleton is now kept in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, along with several memorabilia including a pair of silk stockings, slippers, a ruby ring and casts of her face and hand.



The skeleton of a girl next to the skeleton of the giant Charles Byrne

Caroline Kratchamy's disease is also called Seckel syndrome or bird-headed dwarfism, which is an extremely rare congenital nanosomal disorder. Inheritance is autosomal recessive. The disease is characterized by intrauterine growth restriction and postpartum dwarfism, a small head, a narrow bird-like face with a beak-shaped nose, large eyes with slanted palpebral fissures, a slanted lower jaw and mental retardation.



Child with Seckel syndrome