Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1895 — SPOKE AFTER FIVE YEARS. [ARTICLE]

SPOKE AFTER FIVE YEARS.

A Young Woman Regains Her Speech After a Long IlliicHH. For live years Miss Nellie Fuller, a young woman living in Plainville, 11. 1., could not articulate a single word. She was a teacher in a primary school and one Friday night in September, 1889, on reaching home'she lay down on the sofa and said: “Mother, I'm going to be sick.” She suffered from the grip for several weeks, and since that Friday night, lias not been able to speak until Nov. SO, when, without warning, she spoke aloud. During these years she has tried every imaginable treatment which promised relief. Sixteen doctors were consulted. None of them could account for her peculiar malady. All of them agreed that some day she would talk; when, they did not know, and what would bring about a cure they were at a loss to say. “You do not know how strange It seemed to be not to be able to talk," said Miss Fuller. “Try us hard as 1 might I couldn't make a sound above a whisper. All the doctors supposed it, was owing to my severe illness. They told me that when 1 got strong, perhaps, I would be able to talk, but none of them gave me any encouragement or much assistance. I went to Boston and stayed seven months in an institution for the treatment of nervous diseases. When I went there I could walk and was getting along nicely from a physical standpoint, but when I came home everybody said I couldn't live three months, Last Tuesday as I lay on the lounge I opened my mouth and tried to groan aloud. It was a long time before I succeeded. Finally a lump in my throat seemed to break and the first thing I knew I was down on my knees beside the sofa. ‘Thank God! Thank God!' were the first words I uttered and the first that had passed my lips for five years. What do I lay my cure to? God’s interposition. What else could it have been ?” “We all think it a miracle," spoke old Mrs. Fuller. “It was a miracle from God. and no mistake.” Miss Fuller said her latest medical advisers advanced as a reason for the loss of voice the supposition that the arteries around the vocal cord were compressed. The blood in these arteries got a start and this enabled the Invalid to speak aloud.