Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1874 — A Wonderful Snake Story. [ARTICLE]

A Wonderful Snake Story.

For many months past it has been reported that a young lady living near Christiana, in this county, was afflicted in a very singular manner, and a great many said she was possessed either of a devil or a reptile of some character, which was located in her stomach. Many had been the remarks thereabout, some affirming its possibility, while others “ hooted” at the bare mention of such a thing. Thq interest had continued to increase in regard to it until at different times most all the physicians in that end of the county' had visited the afflicted young lady, and we might say without exaggeration two-thirds of the people of the same section. The grand culmination, however, was reached on Friday night last, 26th of June, by its extraction from the stomach of the girl by Dr. J. M. Burger tff the heretofore mooted “ thing,” which was nothing more nor less than a live snake twenty-three inches long and two-thirds of an inch in diameter. The girl’s name is Thankful Taylor. Her father is dead and her mother has since married Hi»st>anri, William and since her infancy she lias been more or less delicate at times. She first was troubled with the snake about four years ago, and since that time it has continued to grow worse, until for the past two years her life hits been almost continually one of pain and trouble. When she felt the motions of tlie snake in her stomach they were frequently perceptible across the. room, .with- an ■ ordinary bed quilt over her, and were generally upon one or the other side of her stomach. She would suffer great pain, and frequently so severe it would produce convulsions; she would lose her mind, and remain sometimes in a death-like state for twen-ty-four or thirty-six hours. At times her suffering was so great her skin would split opeu, and the flesh upon her head split so much it became necessary to cut her hair off very short; in which condition it is now, and the scars are perceptible to all. She frequently remarked on the 26th it was coming, up soon, and just after dark on that evening, as the family were seated about the door and some of them ou the outside, she arose from her pallet on the floor, rushechout of the west door of the cabin, and in a strangling manner ran some fifteen or twenty steps and fell upon her knees. The family, supposing her in a spasm, ran after her and her little brother, reaching her first, called back to his mother tjiat -‘that thing was in sis’ mouth.” Her stepbrother caught aud held her from behind, she all the while making desperate efforts to get loose, and appeared strangling to death. Her mother found “the thing” in her mouth, as though it had come up head foremost and in going back the same way had doubled itself, making a loop, in which she put her finger and held it until the doctor came, who had been sent for instantly, and arrived in a few minutes from his home, some 400 yards off the way he had to come. The mother, remembering the doctor’s injunctions, held fast, and as it tried to worm itself back Into tlie stomach she called upon, lie rehiugluer to .close her teeth upon it, which her daughter says she did, and there is certainly upon the snake, just where she would have taken bold, unmistakable signs of marks that might have been made by teeth. So soon as the doctor arrived he took hold of it and drew it- out, it making efforts to get down, but coining up with the use of but little strength. The girl has now recovered.—Murfreesboro (Tenn.) News.