The Albany Hand-book in 1884 contained an interesting entry on Calvin Edson, “the walking skeleton,” who
“came to Albany in April, 1830, exhibited himself at the Museum, and gave levees at the Medical College. He was then forty-two years old, five feet two inches high, and weighed but sixty pounds. Subsequently he went upon the stage, as an actor, in the character of Jeremiah Thin. The more he ate the poorer he grew, till, in 1833, he swallowed his last mouthful and lost his last ounce, dying at the weight of forty-five pounds.”
He dedicated his body to medical study, and the medical colleges in New York and Albany vied for his remains, with Albany Medical College succeeding in its quest “through the finesse of the late Mr. Arnold Nelson, and of Dr. Alden March, together with the payment of a good round sum to the skeleton’s widow.”
“By some process of embalming, he was preserved with his skin on, placed in a glass case, and labeled ‘No. 1;’ and his appearance to-day, barring discoloration, is said to be not so very different from what it was when animated by the breath of life and a hearty meal of victuals.”
Confusingly, for those of us who like to believe the dates in these documents, Britain’s “The Spectator” ran an article credited to the “New York Paper” on Nov. 10, 1832, proclaiming that “The unfortunate Calvin Edson is no longer a living skeleton.” Further, the article claimed that
“…the mysterious cause of his excessive emaciation has, it is said, been at length solved. The disease of which he died was tabes mesenteries, or tape-worm. The worm is said to have been twelve or fourteen feet in length.”