It is no coincidence that there are two people in the photo - Adam managed to visit them in his life - a dwarf and a giant. Doctors are still trying to solve this unique medical case.
Among the celebrities of the past, you can find not only those who glorified their name, having made a brilliant career, or accomplished a feat. Here there will be a place for the unfortunate, who were made famous by a serious illness. Our hero is included in the category of the latter.
Childhood
The Rainer family lived in the Austrian city of Graz. Throughout generations, all of its members have been absolutely healthy people with average growth rates. Adam was born in 1899, he had a brother. The first years of the baby's life, the parents observed absolutely healthy boys, but when the guys reached adolescence, something went wrong.
Adam, unlike his brother, grew up very slowly. The adults tried not to give this fact too much importance. The son was given the usual upbringing and education, taught him to calmly treat temporary shortcomings. Our hero did just that. He was 15 years old when the First World War began. The coalition of Austria-Hungary and Germany needed soldiers, and militaristic propaganda was launched. The boy, in a fit of patriotism, went to the recruiting station. There, the teenager was ridiculed and driven home - his height was only 122.5 cm.
Dwarf
The childish resentment passed very quickly. Many boys could not pass themselves off as adults and get to the front. The tragedy happened in 1917 when the boy received a summons. Adam Rainer came to the recruiting station and again did not fit the military in height. This time the conscript's height was 16 cm more. Such parameters did not correspond to the young man's age, he was examined by doctors and diagnosed with dwarfism.
The poor man returned home feeling like a freak. He noticed that he had problems not only with the length of the body, but also with its disproportion. For more than 5 years, Adam has worn size 43 shoes. The most annoying thing is that the short man's feet did not stop growing. In 1920 he needed an unprecedented size 53 boots.
Giant
Resigned to his fate, the midget suddenly noticed that he began to grow. He was already 26 years old, he was declared unfit for the army, he did not have a wife and a personal life. It seemed that nature decided to correct her mistake. The young man did not rejoice for long - his growth quickly reached a mark of 2 meters, and the body began to give up under the pressure of the processes taking place in it.
The giant Adam Rainer in 1929 could boast of 2 meters 18 centimeters in height. He had a serious curvature of the spine, which turned every movement into torment, the ligaments and muscles could not withstand the stress. Outwardly, the giant looked disproportionate, one could easily guess that he was seriously ill.
Medical intervention
Reiner's serious health problems forced him to seek medical attention. Those, on the basis of examinations, concluded that the patient suffers from gigantism. Scientists suggested that the tumor in the pituitary gland is to blame. There was no proven drug treatment for such cases, and neurosurgery was in its early stages of development. The situation was critical, because the patient continued to grow and every day his body was getting worse and worse. The doctors decided to operate on Adam's brain.
During the operation, the tumor was found and removed. The doctors did a good job - the patient quickly recovered. Postoperative observation gave a strange result: the growth of the man continued, but his pace slowed down. After radical treatment, Adam Rainer lived for another 20 years. At the end of his life he was bedridden, had vision problems and was deaf in one ear. These complications were not associated with the transferred surgical intervention. Such troubles accompany the gigantism that this man suffered.
The former dwarf died in March 1950. He did not want to contribute to science, allowing his remains to be examined in order to save such phenomenal people. The giant wished to be cremated after death. Before the procedure, it was only allowed to take measurements. The height of the deceased was 234 cm.
Riddle
The secret that researchers of the biography of Adam Reiner are still struggling with today is the reason for such a late start to growth. Gigantism, as a rule, manifests itself already in adolescence. It turns out that the pituitary gland was not producing enough hormone for a long time, and then suddenly began to throw it out in excess of the norm. There were no more cases like this.
It can be assumed that the pathology of the pituitary gland was so unusual that it was impossible to predict its behavior. Indeed, the presence of a tumor there indicates a non-standard case. If a functional disorder can be discerned visually, this indicates a pathology that has thoroughly destroyed the organ.
It is unclear why none of the scientists hypothesize about external factors that prevented Reiner's disease from manifesting when he was at an early age. The city where the guy grew up is the second most populous in Austria, there is a developed industry, they did not care too much about the environment in those days. The study of probable industrial pollution in Graz and their influence on the development of pituitary diseases could bring us closer to solving the phenomenon. At the same time, a cross would be put on folk art that in ancient times nature was cleaner.
