Medicine: The Case of the Ugly Thief

By the time he was twelve, John Wilbert Glaefke was miserably self-conscious about his looks. Playmates, with childish cruelty, called him "big lips" and "bulldog." In junior high, a teacher asked him in front of the class if he had any Negro blood. When he reached the age of wanting dates, the girls looked at him with frank distaste or fear and refused.

In time, John stopped playing with other kids and withdrew more & more into himself. He stayed at home with his mother, brother and three sisters, who, he says, were "all...

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