A Topsy-Turvy Girl.
One of the strangest acrobatic «rformances of recent years is that P^jiven by Mdle. Eugenic Petrescu. The young lady, who is about eighteen year-; (>f n^e, and rather Bhort in static, is pos?'-?sed of abnormal muscular development in
the arms and hands, which she uses in the same manner .that other persons do their legs and feeti On them she walks, runs, and leaps — backwards, forwards, and sideway?, turns, and goes up and down stairs. She can also stand on either arm while rotating her body, walk ou crutches with her feet in the air, skip, or execute the step 9o* most dances in exact time to the music of a piano. In consequence of the use to which they have been put, her arms have gradually assumed the shape of a monkey's paw, the thumbs being longer than the forefingers. Mdle. Petrescu came to adopt this peculiar mode of locomotion as the outcome of an experiment made by her father, who had been struck by the resemblance between the muscles of the arms* and those of the legs. He conceived the idea of developing a pair of arms to perform the duties of the lower limbs, and chose his daughter, then five years old, for the experiment. After five years of daily practice, the girl was able to walk quite easily on her hands> without apparently being at all incommoded by the unusual, and peculiar position which she assumed.
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Manawatu Herald, 4 January 1896, Page 3
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243A Topsy-Turvy Girl. Manawatu Herald, 4 January 1896, Page 3
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