Page "Joseph Merrick" Paragraph 36

Merrick's condition gradually deteriorated during his four years at the London hospital.

He required a great deal of care from the nursing staff and spent much of his time in bed, or sitting in his quarters, with diminishing energy.

His facial deformities continued to grow and his head became even more enlarged.

He died on 11 April 1890, at the age of 27.

At around three o ' clock in the afternoon, Treves ' house surgeon visited Merrick and found him lying dead across his bed.

His body was formally identified by his uncle, Charles Merrick.

An inquest was held on 15 April by Wynne Edwin Baxter, who had come to notoriety conducting inquests for the Whitechapel murders of 1888.