DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0118
94 kirby’s wonderful museum.
Bradcock, and from whom I received the following singular
narrative: that in the severe winter of 1783, she was seized with
pain in most of her limbs, which she attributed to cold and
the rheumatism ; when one day, walking across the house,
she tripped her foot slightly against a brick, and was sur-
prised to find her leg broken near the ancle. Before she
was perfectly recovered from this accident, she became
pregnant; and growing weak and infirm, was assisted by her
husband in getting out of bed, when her left thigh-bone
snapped in pieces, without any other force than its own
weight falling against his back. She was safely delivered by
an experienced gentleman of the faculty; after which her
left arm was fractured near the shoulder, by putting it over
an assistant’s neck to get out of bed. This likewise formed
a callus, and grew well. She then found her right thigh-
bone broken, as she lay in bed, very high up near the hip,
as it was also, some time after, lower down towards the
knee. Her collar-bone has likewise separated without acci-
dent or violence. Her right arm has met with the same
misfortune, by only lifting a pint bason off a table. She
now lies with the third fracture of her right thigh, which
happened last Sunday, from being gently raised in her bed,
at or near the part by her knee before broken and callused.
The bones are permitted to grow together in an irregular
manner, with the assistance of bathing and bandage only, as
an extension of her limbs would endanger breaking them
into twenty pieces. So deplorable is this unhappy woman’s
situation, that they dare not move her to make the bed, for
fear of breaking her bones. She is thirty-two years of age,
of a delicate make, lax fibre, fair complexion, and pale
brown hair; has had eight children, and always lived a sober
temperate life, and never took medicines of the mercurial,
or any kind, but has generally enjoyed a fair state of health.
There does not appear any evident cause of this singular
phenomenon. Before the bones break, she always com-
plains of pain on the very spot several weeks, which keeps
4
Bradcock, and from whom I received the following singular
narrative: that in the severe winter of 1783, she was seized with
pain in most of her limbs, which she attributed to cold and
the rheumatism ; when one day, walking across the house,
she tripped her foot slightly against a brick, and was sur-
prised to find her leg broken near the ancle. Before she
was perfectly recovered from this accident, she became
pregnant; and growing weak and infirm, was assisted by her
husband in getting out of bed, when her left thigh-bone
snapped in pieces, without any other force than its own
weight falling against his back. She was safely delivered by
an experienced gentleman of the faculty; after which her
left arm was fractured near the shoulder, by putting it over
an assistant’s neck to get out of bed. This likewise formed
a callus, and grew well. She then found her right thigh-
bone broken, as she lay in bed, very high up near the hip,
as it was also, some time after, lower down towards the
knee. Her collar-bone has likewise separated without acci-
dent or violence. Her right arm has met with the same
misfortune, by only lifting a pint bason off a table. She
now lies with the third fracture of her right thigh, which
happened last Sunday, from being gently raised in her bed,
at or near the part by her knee before broken and callused.
The bones are permitted to grow together in an irregular
manner, with the assistance of bathing and bandage only, as
an extension of her limbs would endanger breaking them
into twenty pieces. So deplorable is this unhappy woman’s
situation, that they dare not move her to make the bed, for
fear of breaking her bones. She is thirty-two years of age,
of a delicate make, lax fibre, fair complexion, and pale
brown hair; has had eight children, and always lived a sober
temperate life, and never took medicines of the mercurial,
or any kind, but has generally enjoyed a fair state of health.
There does not appear any evident cause of this singular
phenomenon. Before the bones break, she always com-
plains of pain on the very spot several weeks, which keeps
4