20-year-old man died with 40 pounds of manure in his abdomen after years of suffering with irregular bowel movements and constipation.
J.W, a 20-year-old man died with 40 pounds of manure in his abdomen. The patient’s medical history revealed that his problems began well before the age of 2. He often suffered with irregular bowel movements and constipation in addition to an enlarged abdomen. Similarly, as he grew older, the size of his abdomen continued to increase along with the severity of constipation. By the age of 16, he would go for a month without any bowel movements.
At 20 years of age, he was employed by a freak show in Philadelphia, exhibited as the “Balloon Man”. He was found dead in his bathroom attempting a bowel movement, a decade later.
To this day, his 8 foot megacolon, dried and stuffed with straw and fabric is on display in Philadelphia, at the Mütter Museum. The museum is owned by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia which is one of the oldest professional medical organisations in the United States.
Although this man’s condition was a medical mystery many years ago, it is now known to be caused because of congenital aganglionic megacolon, also known as Hirschsprung’s disease.
Hirschsprung’s disease
Hirschsprung’s disease is an abnormality in which the nerve fibres (autonomic ganglia) fail to develop in the smooth muscle wall and distal part of the colon. This either weakens or stop peristalsis in the colon and results in chronic constipation. The disease affects 1 in every 5,000 live births and is four times more common in males. The condition was first described in 1886 by Danish paediatrician Herald Hirschsprung.
References
Medical mystery solved: The case of the ‘Balloon Man’ https://cfapi.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/2573
