The 101-year-old Chinese woman who grew a devil-like horn from her
forehead has confirmed that she’s now growing a matching one on the
other side of her head – and says that she’s looking forward to it.
Zhang Ruifang first noticed the horn on the left side of her forehead developing in 2009 – and it’s now around 6cm long. And she says that doctors have now confirmed earlier suspicions that she’s now developing a similar growth on the right side of her forehead. Zhang says she’s turned down offers to have them removed – because she’s never had so many well-wishers and visitors at her home in Linlou, eastern China.
‘At first it was a nuisance sleeping and so on, but now I get people visiting me all the time bringing me food and gifts and asking to take my picture. ‘I had some doctors who said they would cut it off for free but I told them no. In fact I’m quite looking forward to when the matching one has grown a bit,’ she explained. Youngest son Zhang Guozheng, 60, said he and his five brothers have given up trying to persuade their mother to have them removed. He said: ‘She is on her own a lot of time and we didn’t pay much attention to it until too late and by then she seemed to be quite attached to leaving them there.’
The growths are likely to be ‘cutaneous horns’ – growths made of keratin, the same substance that makes up fingernails. Although most cutaneous horns are only a few millimetres in length, some can extend a number of inches from the skin.
Zhang Ruifang first noticed the horn on the left side of her forehead developing in 2009 – and it’s now around 6cm long. And she says that doctors have now confirmed earlier suspicions that she’s now developing a similar growth on the right side of her forehead. Zhang says she’s turned down offers to have them removed – because she’s never had so many well-wishers and visitors at her home in Linlou, eastern China.
‘At first it was a nuisance sleeping and so on, but now I get people visiting me all the time bringing me food and gifts and asking to take my picture. ‘I had some doctors who said they would cut it off for free but I told them no. In fact I’m quite looking forward to when the matching one has grown a bit,’ she explained. Youngest son Zhang Guozheng, 60, said he and his five brothers have given up trying to persuade their mother to have them removed. He said: ‘She is on her own a lot of time and we didn’t pay much attention to it until too late and by then she seemed to be quite attached to leaving them there.’
The growths are likely to be ‘cutaneous horns’ – growths made of keratin, the same substance that makes up fingernails. Although most cutaneous horns are only a few millimetres in length, some can extend a number of inches from the skin.