The Fight Over the Juvenile Giant: Contesting Growth in the 1930s.

Abstract

Adolphe Roome III (1916–1967) was not an average 14-year-old boy.1,2 Standing at 6 ft tall and weighing 235 lb, he caused great consternation to his father, Dr Adolphe Roome II. Dr Roome, a former Los Angeles police surgeon, believed that his son suffered from a posterior pituitary disorder.3,4 Thus, he prescribed a pituitary extract to curb his son’s growth. Unfortunately, the son responded adversely to the therapy, complaining that he was “unable to concentrate” and refusing additional treatment.5 What ensued was a legal melee that persisted in the national newspapers for months. Filing a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court in late March 1931, Dr Roome sought to wrest medical custody from his ex-wife and former nurse Helen Roome, who supported her son.5 The New York Times , Los Angeles Times , and Time all covered the “fight over the juvenile giant.”6,7 At first glance, Adolphe’s story seems old-fashioned to 21st-century eyes. However, it has eerie parallels for present-day medicine. Modern pediatricians rely on growth curves as well as laboratory tests to determine which children are tall versus too tall. Indeed, this practice is a mainstay of contemporary pediatric endocrinology.8 The Roome saga highlights the tension that early 20th century physicians faced in defining the boundaries between these 2 categories. Through reconstructing Adolphe’s odyssey, we gain insights into the historical difficulties of evaluating the possible pathologic nature of adolescent growth. Given Adolphe’s precocious growth, Dr Roome believed that his son’s tallness was pathologic, suspecting an … Address correspondence to Samuel V. Schotland, MA, Program in the History of Science and Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 333 Cedar St, New Haven, CT 06511. E-mail: samuel.schotland{at}yale.edu