The sad tale of Julia Pastrana

During the 17th and 18th centuries, when taxonomy was being sorted out and suffering from growing pains, the term "nondescript" was a useful placeholder for any creature that was known but not yet described. This fairly straightforward use of the term was used less and less often as more of the natural world was cataloged until it was more of an admission of ignorance than anything else. This doesn't mean that it went away, however. Giving the name "nondescript" to potentially unidentifiable fossil fragments or to things that seemingly bent the rules of nature became more popular in the 19th century, the word taking on more of a sideshow air. Indeed, this was how the term was used when Julia Pastrana toured England and elsewhere, her bearded appearance causing some to consider of what significance she might be to Darwin's evolutionary theory.

The details of where Julia was born are not known, her husband saying that she was found in a Mexican desert and she worked as a housemaid until she joined a traveling circus when she was 20. She had a beard, was covered in glossy black hair, and she had a somewhat prognathus appearance, signs of what is called hypertrichosis today. This was unknown in Julia's day, however, and she was often regarded as some sort of hybrid or other "freak of nature" that did not fit in the order of things. Indeed, even her humanity was doubted, a flyer from a stop in New York in 1854 proclaiming "its jaws, jagged fangs and ears are terrifically hideous... nearly its whole frame is coated with long glossy hair. Its voice is harmonious, for this semihuman being is perfectly docile, and speaks the Spanish language."

Prior to the advent of evolution's popularity as a topic of discussion, animal and human "monstrosities" were considered signs from God; you should be thankful that you don't look like that. Indeed, a sense of mysticism surrounded people and creatures that deviated from what was expected in their form, and even into the mid-19th century it was worried that even looking at Julia would cause women to miscarry or have monstrous births of their own. Her appearance was often considered to be an obscenity not fit for the public to view, although some took a less hysterical (though not necessarily less disturbing) interest. Francis Buckland, son of the famed paleontologist William Buckland, arranged for some photographs of her to be taken and tried to raise some interest among the doctors of England during Julia's visit there in 1857.

Sadly, Julia died shortly after giving birth to a child in 1860, the child also dying after two days. Death, however, would not stop her husband Theodore Lent from mummifying her and her child, taking them on an extended tour. Victorians had apes on the brain, lurid tales of savage gorillas coming in from Africa and the scientific description of the same animals pairing well with the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 and T.H. Huxley's arguments with Richard Owen about the brains of humans & "lower" primates. Rather than being some monstrous aberration meant to make people turn their gaze to God, Julia now represented a "missing link," and the popularity of apes was just too tempting for Lent to let his wife rest in peace.

People who exhibited unusual and extraordinary characters were often treated like commodities, Julia being no exception to this revolting practice. This made her somewhat easier to approach, however, and many people still turned out to see her body and discuss her anatomy. Ultimately, her body and that of her child wound up in Norway where they have disappeared and resurfaced multiple times since the 1860's. The remains of other extraordinary people from around the same time were also treated in an unethical fashion; the "Irish Giant" Charles Byrne, for example, being put on display at the Hunterian Museum (where his bones still reside) despite his wishes that he be buried at sea. That such people were so cruelly treated is utterly disgusting, yet it did not seem to cause much of a commotion in the 19th century. Even now, the remains of people like Julia Pastrana and Charles Byrne are treated as historical curiosities as well as natural curiosities, and I cannot but question why the respect that they were never given in life is not given to what remains of them.

References;

Browne, J.; Messenger, S. (2003) "Victorian spectacle: Julia Pastrana, the bearded and hairy female." Endeavour, Vol.27 (4), pp. 155-159