102-year-old Saleh Talib Saleh says he had had dreams when he was younger of growing horns from his head.
At the age of 77, he started noticing a hard patch on his scalp. It wasn’t really bothering him and, since at the time there were no local medical facilities, he just ignored it.
Gradually, the hard patch grew into
what looked like a horn. The growth reached 1.6 feet before the stress on it, due to everyday life, caused it to weaken and fall off.
Almost immediately, a second ‘horn’ began growing in the place of the first. Many people from around the Gulf countries have travelled to visit Saleh in order to view what he considers to be a ‘gift from Allah’.
So, is this story true?
Well, I haven’t been able to track down much coverage of it (these aren’t the easiest search terms to isolate). Saleh has said he had no local medical facilities when he first grew the horn, but there is no mention of his having been to see a doctor (or a doctor seeing him) in the following twenty-five years. The only photograph I’ve found is the one in the linked article.
(Thanks, Tah.)
Edit: The complete photograph (shown in the article) seems to have some sort of Arabic writing at the bottom. Can anyone translate?
Comments
It seems like the average boy has different ambitions.
I'd say it's either a bone spur or some kind of cyst, but then, one man's abnormal grwoth is another man's blessing, I guess.
The man is lucky its on the outside of his skull though, not on the inside.
In my language by the way, a "man with horns" is a man being cheated on by his wife....
http://www.yobserver.com/printer-11703.php
I must admit, they're bizarre wherever they occur.
Whether there really is a guy named Saleh Talib Saleh who is 102 and has it, I can't say, but the condition is real enough.
Background: Cutaneous horn is a clinical diagnosis referring to a conical projection above the surface of the skin that resembles a miniature horn. The base of the horn may be flat, nodular, or crateriform. The horn is composed of compacted keratin. ..... continued..
Pathophysiology: Cutaneous horns usually arise on sun-exposed skin but can occur even in sun-protected areas..... continued..
Mortality/Morbidity: The lesion at the base of the keratin mound is benign in the majority of cases..... continued..
Race: Because of the proportion of cutaneous horns that arise from actinic keratoses and squamous cell carcinomas, races with lighter complexions tend to be preferentially affected.
Sex: A sex predilection for cutaneous horn has not been shown consistently. In men, the rate of malignancies at the base of the lesion is increased when compared with age-matched women.
Age: The peak occurrence of cutaneous horn is in persons aged 60 years to mid 70s. Lesions with malignancy at the base occur more frequently in patients aged 70 years or older.
(must be a proverb or something in a language and if not it should be)
And I can understand discoloration. Think about when you have a cut that is healing. Sometimes the skin around the cut or scab may be slightly discolored b/c of the injury. Plus, I would think that the bone is pushing through the skin, it's not like the skin just disappeared from the area...it had to go somewhere, and so it wrinkled around the base of the horn. Sort of like a river diverging around a large rock. There isn't less skin, it's just rearranged.
This is because a standard Latin version of the Bible of that era said that Moses had "horns" on his head when he came down from Mount Sinai.
Most scholars now would agree that this was a mistranslation of the original Hebrew-- modern translations usually render the same phrase with "his forehead shone," or something similar.
Shabwa : is an Arabic name.