Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1875 — A Strange Affliction. [ARTICLE]

A Strange Affliction.

A voting lady in Springfield, Mass., who four or five years ago injured her spine by a coasting accident, has since that time exhibited some extraordinary abnormal symptoms, which the Union thus describes: “She is subject to a strange variety of attacks—all due, doubtless, to one general cause, yet queer enough to be classed phenomena). Sometimes she is blind; again, she is stricken with deafness; subsequently recovering both these senses, she will sing and play with an ease and dexterity which, it is declared, were impossible to her before her accident. To-day she may be in apparently good health; to-morrow she may become helpless, and remain bedridden for weeks. A particularly distressing form* of her malady is the closing up of her throat, so that she can only take liquid food, and that through a tube. On one occasion she received a gentleman caller with much cordiality and grace, and then immediately got down on all-fours and crawled under the table, refusing for some time to speak or stir; yet she is not considered insane, as her mind is most of the time perfectly clear. Daring her singular illness she has acquired a great love for morphine, which she now eats in large quantities. Strange to say, she seems to thrive and grow fat upon it, and there is probably no girl of eighteen in Spring, field who is fairer or more attractive, in person than she,'in spite of this habit and the many and severe trials she has been called to pass through.” •