So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum.
Jonathan Swift, extract from On Poetry: A Rhapsody (1733)
The popular notion that stories about people changing size are aimed at children is an odd one when you look at it with an adult eye. I find it impossible, for example, to think of the hero of Gulliver’s Travels, pinned to the ground by a thousand tiny arrows, without also recalling that the author Jonathan Swift is said to have had Meniere’s Disease – a kind of vertigo which can lead to collapses, as if suddenly defeated by the smallest of everyday things. In this way, a rapid change of scale can be seen as a metaphor for something that brings us ‘down to size’, such as an embarrassing heath condition, a change in social status, or a shift in perspective. 