Physical properties of the skin in the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

*Read to the Heberden Society on February 14, 1969. tPresent address: Department of Physical Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London,9.E.pu Preet address: ohns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. circus exhibitionists. One gentleman made his name by his ability to place six golf balls in his mouth at the same time (Duperrat, 1965). Another well-known clown could touch his nose with his bottom lip. A photograph of an "Elastic Lady", which was found in a Hampstead fairground peepshow, is shown in Fig. 2. Pride of place must go to the Spaniard, George Albes, who in 1657 demonstrated before the physicians of the Academy of Leiden "the extraordinary dilatability of his skin, which could be stretched to half an ell"* (van Meekeren, 1682). In a contemporary portrait he is depicted pulling up the skin of his chest to touch his chin.