Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Introduction

In 1886, Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson presented a case of a 3-year-old boy who had features resembling those of an elderly man (Hutchinson, 26). In 1887, Dr. Hastings Gilford described the second known case of this particular syndrome, with similar clinical findings (Gilford, 19). Gilford coined the term 'progeria' to describe his findings. The condition now eponymously bears both their names and is known as Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS). In 1984, the International Progeria registry was established (Yu and Zeng, 11).

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

In 1921, the great American author F. Scott Fitzgerald published a short story entitled 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' (Fitzgerald, 21), in which he presents the case of a baby boy, Benjamin Button, born to a Baltimore family in 1860. However, the newborn Button child was born with the features of an elderly man. A literary enhancement to this story is that Benjamin ages backwards-he is born elderly and grows younger.

Fitzgerald provides many detailed descriptions of the condition of the central character throughout the short story while never actually stating a name or diagnosis of the condition. I propose that the condition which was afflicting Benjamin Button is HGPS. It is clear that the condition about which Fitzgerald was consciously writing is HGPS, if one takes into account Fitzgerald's use of literary license in his masterful attempt to interweave a documented medical abnormality into a fictional story. (Csoka et al., 24).

Fitzgerald's story opens in a Baltimore hospital with Benjamin Button's father frantically attempting to find his newborn son. He has already been alerted, by the doctor and various hospital staff, to the fact that there is something highly unusual about his infant son. When a nurse finally shows Mr. Button his son, he thinks that he is either insane or that he is the victim of a cruel joke. He is assured by the nurse that neither is the case. (Merideth et al., 2).

Mr. Button describes the infant as resembling a man of approximately 70 years of age. He goes on to describe the child's sparse white hair and a long smoke-collared beard. Upon accepting the fact that his newborn son is extremely different in appearance compared with other newborns, Mr. Button proceeds to attempt to buy clothes for the child to help conceal his strange appearance from others in Baltimore society. As time progresses, it slowly becomes evident that Benjamin is actually growing younger. The fictional Benjamin Button lived a life that spanned seven decades. He was able to graduate from college, play on the college football team, get married, and have children and even grandchildren. Benjamin experienced a very peaceful death as the inverse aging process eventually caused his self-consciousness to fade completely away.

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome

Infants with HGPS generally appear normal at birth. Typical manifestations of the syndrome gradually develop and are usually apparent by the first or second year of life (Wisuthsarewong and Viravan, 19-29). At about this time, children with HGPS begin to display ...