Danger, Disability, and Double Age: Precocity and the Misfit Bodymind in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

At the age of ten months he could speak and repeat every word that was said to him; when twelve months old he knew by heart the principal events narrated in the Pentateuch; in his second year he learned the greater part of the history of the Bible, both of the Old and new Testaments; in his third year he could reply to most questions on universal history and geography; in the same year he learned to speak Latin and French; in his fourth year he employed himself in the study of religion and the history of the Church, and he was able not only to repeat what he had read, but also to express his own judgment. The King of Denmark, wishing to see this wonderful child, he was taken to Copenhagen, there examined before the Court, and proclaimed to be a wonder. On his return home he learned to write, but his constitution being weak, he shortly after fell ill, and died. . . . 1