I own the little collection of mid-19th century ephemera posted here for a man who went by the name B. M. Kemp. The showcard below is printed on "porcelain stock," a glossy finish especially popular in the 1850s. This card tells the story that the poor fellow had "an awful growth on his neck" weighing 15 pounds. But he bravely, even boldly, went before the public for a fee, displaying himself and teaching his version of how the body worked.
Kemp also railed against what he called the "Horrors of Drug Medication," which hints that he had some alternative he was likely selling at the conclusion of his lectures. (It was the usual sequence of events in medicine shows and advertisements to first show moral outrage about the worthlessness and dangerousness of competitor's medicines and those used by medical society doctors, after which the lecturer would present his own medicines, which he assured were genuinely effective). Kemp then showed another visual that may have been as unsettling as the abnormality protruding over his collar - a manikin with removable parts to show the onlookers something that most had never seen but constantly wondered about - the inside of themselves.
Kemp was a rare and odd-looking performer to be sure, but he wasn't the only unusual visitor hoping to entertain and educate while making some money in the towns he visited. Education and fascination collided in the pageant of curious people and creatures that toured throughout the American countryside during the mid-19th century. This was the era of Chang and Eng, the famous Siamese twins; Barnum's fejee Mermaid; and Tom Thumb; the time when lions, tigers, camels, and elephants appeared in large tents on the outskirts of town for a day or two before they disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.
It was also during this time that traveling medical and physiological lecturers captivated audiences by using manikins to illustrate human anatomy. Male and female anatomy was taught separately to the two sexes to protect the privacy and modesty of both as they listened to things about their own anatomy that they hoped might not be true but feared were. In 1850 a prominent doctor in Lynn, Massachusetts, lashed out at all the Kemp-style lecturers who had been giving presentations in his town, "What an abomination are all these self-styled "doctors,' going about preaching their balderdash 'physiology' ...." The Lynn doctor went on to criticize the anatomical accuracy of their manikins, describing the heart of one as looking more like an apple dumpling and intimating that other parts appeared to have been created from items in a toyshop.
Who B. M. Kemp was remains a mystery. It may be that these three little scraps of paper are all that remain to testify of his existance. (We do know Kemp was a man, since the description says the growth was on "his" neck.) We don't really know what the "albuminate growth" was, but at that weight, it was probably close to the size of a bowling ball. When I came across a period photograph (attached here) of a man with a sizeable neck growth, it matched the image my mind had created of B. M. Kemp. Stanley B. Burns, MD & The Burns Archive (see www.burnsarchive.com) have kindly allowed me to share this image here (please note, however, that there's no evidence linking this photograph with B. M. Kemp).
Fascinating!
A fascinating read indeed on B.M. Kemp‘s making the best of his 15 lb. growth on the back of his neck by setting up a traveling show featuring his horrendous growth and declaring his own medical gospel all for price while decrying the practices of contemporary medical doctors.