In 2002, Manolescu Loan, a Romanian man who was walking cross-country after his truck broke down, found 8-year-old Traian, legs splayed from rickets, eating from the carcass of a dog. He was the size of a three-year-old and huddled for warmth in a cardboard box; his circulation slowing because of the frostbite--inevitable in the freezing Transylvanian forest. Three years prior, it seems Traian had been abandoned by his 20-year mother who had been abused by the man to whom she was married under Gypsy law. The doctors who observed the case (and who nicknamed the boy Mowgli) believe that he was fostered by wolves: he barked, howled, growled and bit.
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