Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1891 — BECOMING A FREAK. [ARTICLE]

BECOMING A FREAK.

Mrs. Mollie Hughes’ Body Gradually Calcifying Since 1886. Mrs. Mollie Hughe’s a highly respected widow lady living near Camernville, Idaho, is afflicted with s unique and most distressing disease. Little by little the flesh of her entire body is turning to bone, or, in other words, she is becoming ossified. The disease was first noticed in 188 F when Mrs. Hughes was Miss Duy chink of Canon Rapids. At that time only a single finger was affected. Within a month after the time whet Miss Duychink first noticed the numb nes and stiffness of the finger it had been accidently broken off while she was asleep. - The incident gave the girl no pain, their being neither blood, nerves or flesh left in the diseased member,but it excited the alarm of the family, who called in a physician. The broken stump of the finger was amputated back to where the living flesh set on and everything was though to be all right. Soon the flesh, muscles, arteries, veins and nerves on her hands, fingers andT arms became so hard and feelingless as the finger had been before it was broken off. Ncxt.the awful malady extended to the elbows, the forearms becoming as white and clear as alabaster. Within a year the toes and the end of the nose and ear tip showed a like color and ridigness. The process of ossification has now been going on nearly live years, and the attending physicians say that it is only a matter of time when the entire body of the poor victim will be a solid bone. It is a rare disease, and the pathology of it is little uuderstoocL^-