Doctors give "tree man" hope

The Telegraph and Channel Five reported a shocking story of a tree man of Java who suffered from a bizarre condition for 20 years with bark-like growths spreading uncontrollably from his hands and feet. He was known "tree man" in a travelling freak show alongside victims of other peculiar diseases to make ends meet.


His plight was highlighted in a Discovery Channel documentary last year and the team took an American dermatologist, Anthony Gaspari of University of Maryland, to Indonesia to see if he could identify the condition and find a cure.


After months' investigation, Dr Gaspari found that the affliction was caused by an extreme case of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) in combination with a rare immune system deficiency and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.