From the
Canadian Medical Association Journal, December 7, 2004; 171 (12):
Acquired growth hormone deficiency and hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in a subject with repeated head trauma, or Tintin goes to the neurologistAntoine Cyr, Louis-Olivier Cyr and Claude Cyr
Antoine Cyr currently attends Chez Marlène daycare, and his brother Louis-Olivier Cyr is a first-grade member at École primaire Champlain. Claude Cyr is Associate Professor with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Que.We describe the unique case of a public figure who is well known for having delayed pubertal development and statural growth (Fig. 1). We believe we have discovered why Tintin, the young reporter whose stories were published between 1929 and 1975, never grew taller and never needed to shave.
We do not know Tintin's perinatal history. According to Hergé, the author of these stories, Tintin was 14 or 15 years old when he was created.1 He would, therefore, have been at least 60 years old during his final adventure with the Picaros.2 In that book, even though he had reached adulthood, Tintin has no beard or grey hair, and he exhibits no signs of pubertal development.
Recent literature has helped us gain a better understanding of the pathophysiology of hypopituitarism resulting from repeated head trauma.3 We believe that the multiple traumas Tintin sustained could be the first case of traumatic pituitary injury described in the literature.
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