Born around 1899 (the exact date isn’t known), Adam Rainer of Graz, Austria had parents who
were neither tall nor short for the time, with his father measuring in at 5 feet 8 inches
(1.72 m) and his mother at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m). He even had a brother who matched
his father's height at 5 feet 8 inches. This wasn't the case for Adam.
Thanks to the fact that Adam attempted to join the army when he was 18 to participate
in WWI, we know at that age Rainer had reached a height of just 4 feet 6.3 inches (1.38 m),
and then at 19 he measured in at 4 feet 8.3 inches (1.43 m) when he tried to join up again.
Both times he was considered too short and also too weak to be able to join the military.
For reference, the cutoff for someone being classified as a dwarf is usually considered
to be an adult height of less than 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 m).
While he was short, according to the medical report, he actually had exceptionally large
feet for his height, with his shoes measuring in at a European size of 43 at the age of
18, which is about a size 10 in U.S. sizes. According to Rainier, by the time he hit 21,
while still barely classified as a dwarf in height, his shoe
size had gone up to a European size 53, which would be about a size 20 in the U.S. (for
reference, Shaquille O'Neal wears a size 22-23). Although his feet were continuing to grow
at a remarkable pace, Rainer himself was staying at more or less the same height.
That's when something even more bizarre than his clown-feet happened. For a reason unknown
at the time, Adam started growing again... rapidly.
However, what must have initially seemed a blessing to the short Rainer, soon turned
into a curse. From his 21st birthday to his 32nd, Rainer grew from just under 4 feet 10
inches tall to 7 feet 2 inches (1.47 m to 2.18 m). It should also be noted that his
height would have been greater than this, except by his 26th birthday he started developing
a severe spinal curve, which continued to progress as he grew. This, and later difficulty
in eating, had the negative side effect of leaving Rainer bed ridden for the majority
of the latter half of his life. If that wasn't bad enough, he also went blind
in his right eye and his vision diminished in his left. His hearing also started to go
and he became deaf in his left ear. So what caused this extreme shift in height?
After a medical exam done by Doctors F. Windholz and A. Mandl, they discovered a tumor on his
pituitary gland, which not only explained his rapid growth but his partial blindness
as well. As far as the growth is concerned, this tumor resulted in a condition known as
acromegaly, where the pituitary gland produces excessive
amounts of growth hormone during adulthood. His vision loss was due to the compression
of his optic chiasm, which is where the right and left eye nerves cross near the pituitary
gland. To try to fix the problem, in 1930 doctors
removed the tumor, but he still continued to grow, albeit at a much slower rate that
seemed even slower than it was because of his spinal curvature continuing to increase.
Over the next and final 19 years of his life, Rainer's spinal curve would continue to increase
and he'd grow another 6 inches, dying at the age of 51 in 1950 at a height of about 7 feet
8 inches (2.34 m), making him the only known person to spend time officially classified
as a dwarf and then as a giant. Bonus Facts:
If you happen to be wondering, the tallest living person is Sultan Kosen from Ankara,
Turkey. Born in December of 1982, he stands at 8′ 3″ tall! Mr. Kosen also holds the
record for the widest hand span at 12 inches. The tallest man in history was Robert Pershing
Wadlow, who was 8 feet 11.1 inches (2.72 m) tall and 485 pounds at the time of his death.
By the age of 4 years old, he was already 5 ft 4 inches tall (1.63m). At the age of
13, he became the tallest Boy Scout in history at 7 ft 4 inches (2.24m). Wadlow had not yet
stopped growing at the time of his death at the age of 22. He died in 1940 of an infection
caused from blisters on his ankle that he didn’t notice at first due to not being
able to feel much of anything in his feet and lower legs. Like his living counter-part,
Robert holds another record. His feet were the largest in history at US Size 37AA. That
would be 18 ½ inches long. Speaking of heights, ever wondered why people
today are so much taller than people in history? Well, wonder no more. In a nutshell, there
is very strong evidence that this simply comes down to nutrition and the body's ability to
fully benefit from said nutrition via not getting certain diseases that hinder the absorption
of consumed nutrients. For example, during the Black Death (1346-1353),
60% of the European population, about 50 million people, died quite suddenly, leaving the surviving
40% and their offspring with greater access to food and less crowded living conditions;
together, this contributed to fewer diseases and better nutrition, and as a result, people
during the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe grew much taller than their forebears. In
fact, in England, the average man was only about 1.5 inches (3.81 cm) shorter during
this time compared with the average Englishman today (at about 5'9" or 175 cm).
Seventeenth century Europe, however, was a mess, with cold winters from the Little Ice
Age limiting crop production, civil war in England, Louis XIV's expansionary aggression
and the Thirty Years' War. As a result, human health and height suffered, with the average
Frenchman reaching only about 5'4" (162 cm). (Not coincidentally why French men popularized
wearing high-heels around this time, a practice that women would later adopt and men largely
abandon, outside of high heels worn by cowboys, which are otherwise known as cowboy boots
to make them seem more manly.) Faring little better during the 18th and early
parts of the 19th century, many western Europeans lived in dirty, disease-ridden slums that
prevented them from increasing significantly in height, with men across Europe in 1850
only reaching, on average, about 5'5" (165 cm). Starkly marking the difference proper
diet and living conditions can make here is that 19th century English students at the
Sandhurst Military Academy (upper class) were on average a whopping 8.7 inches (22 cm) taller
than their compatriots at the Marine Society boys (lower class).
In the United States, things were quite different, with the average man in 1850 attaining a height
of about 5'7" (170 cm). In fact, on average, people in the U.S. remained taller than their
European counterparts from the Revolutionary War through World War II (with a slight dip
during the second industrial revolution). It is thought that American height dominance
during this period was due to having a relatively resource-rich environment, where, with the
largely privately owned agriculture-based society, many had easier access to a wider
variety of nutrition sources than was common in places like the UK, where a very small
percentage of people owned much of the land being farmed and much higher population densities
existed. Things began to change after WWII. In the
last half century or so, the average American height has more or less remained the same,
while post-war Europeans have, on the whole, sprouted like crazy. In the most extreme case,
throughout the 19th century men and women of the Netherlands averaged roughly 5'5" (166
cm) for men and 5'1" (156 cm) for women- relatively short for their era and region of the world.
Today, the tallest people in the world are found in the Netherlands, where the average
man is just over 6 feet tall (183 cm) and the average woman is nearly 5'7" (170 cm).
By comparison, American men are 5'9" (175 cm) on average, and women are 5'4" (163 cm).
Some believe that the great strides in height made by Western Europeans over Americans can
be attributed to their universal health coverage and other social policies, such as maternity
services and greater parental leave allowing for better practicality of things like breastfeeding
vs. formula fed and, later, more time off work providing extra time for preparing nutritious
meals, rather than relying on fast-food and other quick high-calorie, low nutrition "junk"
foods. Further, the so-called "over-nutrition" prevalent in the U.S., combined with lack
of physical activity leading to widespread obesity, has also been noted for its negative
effects on growth hormones and metabolism, limiting the ultimate adult height somewhat.