Great Falls Tribune

THERE WERE GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS

ALL legendary history is full of tales about giants. There was Goliath of Gath, whom David the shepherd boy slew in the Valley of Elah. We have a very full and detailed history of him in the first Book of Samuel. He was six cubits and a span in height. A Hebrew cubit was about 17½ inches. A span is the distance between the thumb and little finger when spread out to its greatest extent. It was reckoned about 9 inches. So this famous giant of the Bible story was about 9½ feet high. His weight is not given, but it is recorded that his coat of mail weighed "5,000 shekels of brass" and the spearhead that he carried on a wooden haft like "a weavers' beam" weighed "600 shekels of iron." We are not fully informed as to just what a shekel of brass or a shekel of iron weighed in those days, but a shekel of gold was about half an ounce troy. If the same weight applied to the baser metals that coat of mail Goliath wore would weigh about 200 pounds and his spearhead 25 pounds. Then he wore other brass protective furniture besides and must have been a walking junkshop. David killed him with a small pebble thrown by a sling which hit him between the eyes, and won the king's daughter as a prize for his valor.

Buddha won a wife with the bow of a giant. This bow had lain in a temple for hundreds of years. So great was it that no man till Buddha's time could bend it. Almost all legendary history tells us of the existence of these giants and their mighty deeds. We have been inclined to take a grain of salt with them, deeming them rather greatly exaggerated, to say the least. But now comes a dignified scientific journal, the Journal of the American Medical association, with an account of a giant to match Goliath in his proportions. He is a Russian born in Siberia and has been making some money for himself by exhibiting himself in Hungary. Some American Barnum will get him and make a fortune out of him, no doubt. We read this description of him in American Medicine (New York):

"He is 34 years of age, his height is 9 feet 3 inches, and he is built in proportion to his height. Thus, his hand is 1 foot 1 inch from finger tip to wrist; his foot is 1 foot 9 inches long; his chest measurement is 56 inches; the circumference of his head is 25 inches and his weight is 458 pounds. To support this huge frame he eats an amount that would satisfy four others of good appetite. In four meals in the course of the day he consumes 4 or 5 pints of milk, 15 to 20 eggs, 3 or 4 pounds of meat, 5 or 6 loaves of bread, large quantities of potatoes, beans and other vegetables, 4 to 6 pints of wine and 5 or 6 quarts of beer. These quantities appear to be well attested, as do the measurements of his proportions; but the fact that arrests attention particularly in the accounts of the giant's habits is the enormous amount of sleep that he needs. Normally he passes a large portion of the day in slumber, and he has been known to sleep for 24 hours on end. Even when awake his movements are slow and deliberate, and he is inclined to doze off when left alone, the only stimulus to exertion being the cravings of hunger, which are said to be acute. It is impossible in the light of recent researches on gigantism to regard this prodigious specimen of humanity as a mere 'freak.' He must be the subject of pathologic change, probably in the pituitary body. The condition of general symmetrical gigantism gradually developing is not in all points like true acromegaly, but is closely allied to it. The prognosis with regard to longevity can not be said to be bright. Kazanloff has now left for his fatherland, Siberia, where he intends to help his parents in farm work."