This 18th century man had the world’s longest nose

An old man's photo who had the world's longest nose has gone viral on social media. The photo was shared by a meme account on Twitter named Historic Vids.

On 12 November, the social media handle of Historic Vids shared a photo of Thomas Wedders also known as Thomas Wadhouse, who was a English circus performer in the 18th century and had the world's longest nose.

In a tweet, it wrote, “Thomas Wadhouse was an English circus performer who lived in the 18th century. He is most famously known for having the world's longest nose, which measured 7.5 inches (19 cm) long.”

The tweet has garnered 119,839 likes and has been retweeted by over 7,200 users.

As per Guinness World Records (GWR) website, there are historical accounts that Thomas Wedders, who lived in England during the 1770's and was a member of a travelling freak circus, had a nose measuring 19 cm (7.5 in) long.

Also speaking about the world record, Thomas was posthumously titled the man with the longest nose. As per the latest GWR website, the longest nose on a living person (male) is 8.80 cm (3.46 in), and was achieved by Mehmet Özyürek (Turkey), in Artvin, Turkey, as verified on 13 November 2021. 

As per GWR, remarkably, Mehmet's nose has not grown since it was first measured on on the set of Lo Show dei Record in Rome, Italy, on 18 March 2010. Mehmet had told GWR: "I am very happy with my nose and I don't have any intention to change it. I always had a feeling I was going to go places and be someone because of my nose."

As per reports, the photo of Thomas was a wax reproduction of his head which is kept at Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.

Meanwhile, soon after the tweet was shared, comments started pouring in. “It’s been historically documented that he was, in fact, the only one who *could* smell what The Rock was cooking.” “He could literally smell a scam from a mile away,” a user wrote. “I mean... This is what makes Twitter so wacky & wonderful. Tweets like this. Thank you,” some other wrote. While another wrote, “This cannot be real.” 

Some also shared cartoon characters who also had big nose like Thomas Wedders. Here's a look at some tweets: