Skinny People

The emaciated individuals exhibited as living skeletons were standard dime museum fare. Often the males were paired with fat ladies and the couples presented as man and wife although only the twentieth-century living skeleton Peter Robinson is know to have actually married a fat lady. Most living skeletons suffered from degenerative diseases, tuberculosis being the most common. As their bodies wasted their muscles atrophied. Isaac Sprague, illustrated below, embarked on a show career when he found himself getting too weak for other work.