The story of Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest man in the world (5 photos + 1 video)

Just imagine – he’s 2.72 meters tall! When Robert Pershing was six, he was 1.70 meters tall, and at 16, he was 2.44 meters tall. How did he live with such height?





Robert with his family

It’s not a cakewalk, to say the least. Officially, his condition is called pituitary gigantism, which means his pituitary gland was producing way more growth hormones than it needed.

Nowadays doctors can easily recognize the disease and carry out the necessary treatment, but at the beginning of the last century the necessary medicines had not yet been invented.



Robert Wadlow together with actresses Maureen O'Sullivan and Anne Morris

The life of a freak

Robert Wadlow was destined to become a freak (from the English freak - a freak) - a person at whom everyone points a finger. A laughing stock, a clown for the public.

And he dreamed of becoming a lawyer, and even studied for one semester after school, but then he had to drop out. Robert resigned himself and got a job with the Ringling Brothers Circus, performing in the Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden arenas. He never wore circus costumes, and always performed as himself.





Robert Wadlow

In 1938, Robert was offered an independent tour of America in the guise of the "American miracle." Over several years, Robert visited 800 cities in the United States and covered distances of over 500,000 km in a car.

Robert Wadlow was well aware of who he was to the public, and he never allowed himself to be angry with people who laughed at him. He was a good-natured giant, and with a good sense of humor.

One of the public's favorite pastimes was comparing Wadlow's shoe size with their own. Needless to say, many were simply shocked by the size 93 shoe:).



This is what size 93 shoe looks like

The only thing he did not allow was to pinch his feet. Many thought that Wadlow walked on stilts and wanted to check if his feet were real.

Imagine being pinched by hundreds of hands all day!

Because of Wadlow's great height, he had to wear an iron corset to support his legs. The corset rubbed his feet badly, and Robert was constantly treating his feet for blisters. Plus, his feet were insensitive to pain, so a special person had to examine his feet.



But during one of the trips between cities, this person was absent, and Robert did not know that an abscess had formed on one of his feet, through which an infection entered the body.

This was the cause of Robert Wadlow's death. About a week after the infection, he died of a deadly fever. He was buried in Illinois. In 1975, a documentary about him, "Robert's Story," was released.