Daniel Mynheer Cajanus

Cajanus (family)

The Cajanus family is an old northern Finnish family of clergymen and government officials. Count Per Brahe nominated the progenitor of the family, a local nimismies Anders Eriksson, to be bailiff of his fiefdom of Kajaani...

(1704 – 27 February 1749) was a Finnish giant

Gigantism

Gigantism, also known as giantism , is a condition characterized by excessive growth and height significantly above average...

. He made his living by exhibiting himself for money; he appeared in many European countries and attracted the interest of scientists and laypeople, including royalty. After his death, portions of his skeleton found their way into museums, where some parts still remain.

Biography

Cajanus was born in Paltamo

Paltamo

Paltamo is a municipality of Finland.It is part of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water. The population density is. There are two built-up areas in the municipality: Kontiomäki and Paltamo...

, Oulu

Oulu Province

Oulu was a province of Finland from 1775 to 2010. It bordered the provinces of Lapland, Western Finland and Eastern Finland. It also bordered the Gulf of Bothnia and Russia.- Historical Province :For History, Geography and Culture see: Ostrobothnia...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, the son of a clergyman. Finland was at that time part of Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, and Cajanus was often referred to as the "Swedish Giant". Estimates of his adult height vary and range as high as 10 in 10 in (3.3 m). Jan Bondeson, a medical professional and author who has researched and written on Cajanus, suggests that his true height was around 7 in 8 in (2.34 m). Various unconfirmed versions of his early life exist, but tax records indicate he may have left the country in 1723 or soon afterward, and Finnish and Swedish tradition recounts that he joined the bodyguard of Frederick William I of Prussia

Frederick William I of Prussia

Frederick William I of the House of Hohenzollern, was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death...

, which was composed of unusually tall soldiers and was nicknamed the Potsdam Giants

Potsdam Giants

The Potsdam Giants was the Prussian infantry regiment No 6, composed of taller-than-average soldiers. The regiment was founded in 1675 and dissolved in 1806 after the Prussian defeat against Napoleon...

.

Cajanus lived for some years at the court of August II of Poland, where he served as a cavalry soldier. Following the king's death in 1733 he appears to have moved on, and according to Theophilus Cibber

Theophilus Cibber

Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.He began acting at an early age, and followed his father into theatrical management. In 1727, Alexander Pope satirized Theophilus Cibber in his Dunciad as a youth who "thrusts his person full...

 spent time in Germany before arriving in London, where he is recorded as having appeared at Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 in February 1734, playing the part of Gargantua in the pantomime

Pantomime

Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...

 Cupid and Psyche, and in several other productions. He exhibited himself for money in various places in London, billed as the "Swedish Giant". His portrait was painted twice during his stay in England by the artist Enoch Seeman

Enoch Seeman

Enoch Seeman the Younger was born in Danzig, now Gdansk, Poland, around 1694. His father, also Enoch was born around 1661, and the Seeman family were painters....

; one of these portraits is now in the National Museum of Finland

National Museum of Finland

The National Museum of Finland presents Finnish history from the Stone Age to the present day, through objects and cultural history. The Finnish National Romantic style building is located in central Helsinki and operates in collaboration with the National Board of Antiquities , an association...

 and depicts him in his Polish soldier's uniform, with an inscription stating his height as 7 in 10 in (2.39 m). In 1735 he traveled to Paris, where he exhibited himself to paying audiences and was received privately at Versailles

Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

 by Louis XV

Louis XV of France

Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

, the queen and the dauphin. Later he took up residence in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, where he lived from 1735 to 1741 as the guest of the landlord of the Blauw Jan, an inn where natural curiosities could be seen and traded. After an unsuccessful spell as a moneylender

Moneylender

A moneylender is a person or group who offers small personal loans at high rates of interest.-See also:* Microfinance - provision of financial services to low-income individuals....

 Cajanus returned to exhibiting himself, visiting England again in 1741 and 1742 and appearing before a meeting of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

, where his height was marked against a pillar and reported to be 7 feet 4¼ inches (224 cm) in his shoes. The society's president Martin Folkes

Martin Folkes

Martin Folkes FRS , English antiquary, was born in London.He was educated at Saumur University and Clare College, Cambridge, where he so distinguished himself in mathematics that when only twenty-three years of age he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society...

 observed that Cajanus appeared weak at this meeting, and could not stand for long.
The publisher Thomas Boreman met Cajanus during his visit to London in 1742 and produced a book purporting to be his biography. The History of Cajanus, the Swedish Giant, from his Birth to the Present Time was published on 23 September of that year, and advertisements for it encouraged the reader to visit the exhibition opposite the Mansion House

Mansion House, London

Mansion House is the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London in London, England. It is used for some of the City of London's official functions, including an annual dinner, hosted by the Lord Mayor, at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer customarily gives a speech – his...

 where Cajanus himself could be seen.

The Netherlands

Cajanus was quite popular in the Netherlands. In 1745 Cajanus settled in Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

, Netherlands, where he bought the right to live in the Proveniershuis

Proveniershuis

The Proveniershuis is a hofje in Haarlem, Netherlands.-History:The hofje was founded in 1707 by the city council to house elderly men of low means, called proveniers. The main building is much older than that. The entire site was once a nunnery, called the St...

, a sheltered housing

Sheltered housing

Sheltered housing is a British English term covering a wide range of rented housing for older and/or disabled or other vulnerable people. Most commonly it refers to grouped housing such as a block or "scheme" of flats or bungalows with a scheme manager or "officer"; traditionally the manager has...

 unit that provided him with accommodation, meals and medical care. In the following years he wrote and published poetry and became a well-known figure in the town; a line marked on a pillar in the city's Grote Kerk still records his measured height during his residence there. This same pillar has a print now illustrating his exhibitions together with Simon Paap, a dwarf who died in December 1828. A life-size painting of him also hung in the church for centuries, but today hangs in the Haarlem city hall.

Cajanus died on 27 February 1749, leaving a large sum in his will to pay for a lavish funeral and a burial vault inside the Grote Kerk, with the intention of safeguarding his remains from disturbance. His coffin is said to have been 9 in 7 in (2.92 m) long. Despite his precautions, the vault was later sold, and Cajanus's bones were acquired by museums. Some are still held at the Museum of Anatomy in the University of Leiden. Today the Dutch language still remembers him with the slang term "Cajanus voeten", for unusually large feet.

Medical

Daniel Cajanus apparently suffered from gigantism caused by a defect of the pituitary, possibly combined with hypogonadism

Hypogonadism

Hypogonadism is a medical term for decreased functional activity of the gonads. Low testosterone is caused by a decline or deficiency in gonadal production of testosterone in males...

. This is indicated by the fact that Cajanus' bodily proportions, and especially his strikingly long arms, were consistent with those of eunuchs

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

, and by his apparently limited interest in the opposite sex.

A tendency towards gigantism was displayed more broadly in his family. His sister Agneta, who went to Haarlem after his death to deal with his estate, was depicted as an especially large woman. A distant relative, Israel Cajanus, had extremely large hands and feet and thus probably also suffered from acromegaly

Acromegaly

Acromegaly is a syndrome that results when the anterior pituitary gland produces excess growth hormone after epiphyseal plate closure at puberty...

.

The available information about Daniel Cajanus' actual size is somewhat variable, however it is clear that his height reduced somewhat over the course of his life. Investigations into his preserved bones reveal a phenomenon typical of gigantism which explains this reduction: the overproduction of growth hormone leads to a thickening of the cartilage

Cartilage

Cartilage is a flexible connective tissue found in many areas in the bodies of humans and other animals, including the joints between bones, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the elbow, the knee, the ankle, the bronchial tubes and the intervertebral discs...

, which wears away in the course of time, leading to symptoms similar to osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis also known as degenerative arthritis or degenerative joint disease, is a group of mechanical abnormalities involving degradation of joints, including articular cartilage and subchondral bone. Symptoms may include joint pain, tenderness, stiffness, locking, and sometimes an effusion...

. The condyles of his bones show clear signs of erosion, which also explain his difficulties in walking in his later years.