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A brief account of the life of John Chambers : a man born without hands or arms

Publication date: 1880

Topics: Chambers, John, 1850-, Freak shows, Abnormalities, Human, Animals -- Abnormalities, Plants -- Abnormalities, Arm -- abnormalities

Publisher: [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]

Collection: wellcomelibrary; ukmhl; medicalheritagelibrary; europeanlibraries

Contributor: Wellcome Library

Language: English

Rights: This work is available under the Creative Commons, Public Domain Mark

8 pages : 20 cm

Booklet showing John Chambers playing the accordion with his feet on the cover. Interior illustrations show him planing a piece of wood with his feet and sawing a piece of wood with his feet. He was born in June 1850 without hands or arms, was an excellent scholar and married, producing a large family (between 2 and 14 years old when the leaflet was written. Chambers was known on stage (in Victorian freak shows) as The Armless Carpenter, enjoying a period of fame in the 1880s. The leaflet includes an article from the Lancet (19 October 1850) by R. Davies, M.R.C.S. putting forward the theory that this was due to a shock his mother had when she was 6 weeks pregnant upon seeing a child with a similar deformity

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