User:Curtisag/Julia Pastrana

Proposed Edits to the Wikipedia Page Julia Pastrana

Citations Added

Music

The Ass Ponys wrote and recorded the song Julia Pastrana about her life on their 1993 album Grim.

The musical supergroup Apparatjik released a single titled "Julia" on March 20, 2020, accompanied by a lyric video.

Life and Career

At first, Pastrana performed under the management of J.W. Beach, but in 1855, she eloped with Theodore Lent, marrying him in Baltimore, Maryland. Lent took over her management, and they toured throughout the US and Europe.

Section Added

Medical examinations

During her life, Pastrana's management arranged to have her examined by doctors and scientists, using their evaluations in advertisements to attract a larger audience. One doctor, Alexander B. Mott, M.D., certified that she was specifically the result of the mating of a human and an "Orang hutan". Another, Dr. S. Brainerd of Cleveland, declared that she was of a "distinct species". Francis Buckland stated that she was "only a deformed Mexican Indian woman". Samuel Kneeland, Jr., a comparative anatomist of the Boston Society of Natural History, declared that she was human and of Indian descent.

**added**Over 150 years after her death, scientists sequenced a DNA sample obtained from Julia Pastrana's remains, they determined that Julia Pastrana and her sons' condition--often referred to as congenital generalized hypertrichosis terminalis (CGHT) with gingival hyperplasia--to most likely be an X-linked condition with a dominant inheritance pattern. Previously, Julia Pastrana and her sons' condition has been called Ambras syndrome or hypertrichosis lanuginosa. **added**

Charles Darwin discussed her case after her death, describing her as follows: "Julia Pastrana, a Spanish dancer, was a remarkably fine woman, but she had a thick masculine beard and a hairy forehead; she was photographed, and her stuffed skin was exhibited as a show; but what concerns us is, that she had in both the upper and lower jaw an irregular double set of teeth, one row being placed within the other, of which Dr. Purland took a cast. From the redundancy of the teeth her mouth projected, and her face had a gorilla-like appearance".

Clarification of Terms Used in Sources

After death

After Pastrana's death, Lent sold her body and their son's body to Professor Sukolov of Moscow University who permanently preserved them. **edited**Her body was preserved using an embalming process; this process used embalming chemicals administered via an injection. Although generically referred to as a "mummy" by some authors, her preserved body was technically not a mummy because it was not mummified. Her body was often recorded as being "stuffed", such as the comment noted by renowned naturalist and taxidermist Charles Darwin. More recent examination suggests that solely embalming techniques were used, and the embalming was so carefully done that much of the life-like shape and appearance was preserved. **edited** After the bodies were preserved by Sukolov, Lent re-purchased them from him and began exhibiting them throughout Europe. Lent later found another woman with similar features, married her and changed her name from Marie Bartel to Zenora Pastrana, becoming wealthy from her exhibition.^{[citation needed]} Some sources claim that he was eventually committed to a Russian mental institution in 1884 where he died.^{[citation needed]}

Feedback: Adding to an Article

• The way this is organized is really terrific and the fact that you have links to it from your regular sandbox is also great.
• It is difficult to ascertain exactly what your edits were in some cases. For example, it would have been good if you had stated that you were adding a reference to the music section.
• That source for the lyrics is interesting....but is it vetted? Would you consider this highly reliable? This aspect of Wikipedia can be pretty frustrating.
• Now that you are also practicing with references, it is good to get used to making sure that the format and location is in good shape. Doing this and getting comfortable in the sandbox is huge as it is not uncommon to hit a few bumps when you start adding to actual pages. You can see that your numbers do not match the reference page numbers.
• Again back to my previous comment of you not describing what you are doing in each edit...so under life and career...you chose a different source it seems....why?
• For some of these, I am not even sure what it was that you changed. You can try two different ways of identifying and describing your changes:

1. You can copy the original and then have the edited version right below with a very brief description
2. You can describe your changes from the original explicitly.

• Part of describing what you intend to do is to allow me and your colleagues (or other Wikipedians) to preview what you want to do and as such give you more directed feedback.
• I honestly think that you have enough here to suggest at least one change to the talk page if you want to. It will be good practice.

Osquaesitor (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2021 (UTC)