THIRTY-TWO YEARS’ STUPOR.
WOMAN’S.STRANGE AWAKENING.
For 32 years a woman lay in a state ot torpor, being completely insensitive to the stimulus of a pin-prick, and now she has awakened under strange circumstances. When a girl of 14, Caroline Olssou, belonging to Okuo, a small island off the coast of Sweden, complained of toothache and of feeling ill, and shortly after being put to bed she fell into a state of profound stupor, which continued for 32 years. For 30 years she never spoke a word, except when her mother once in desperation besought her to pray, ahd the patient said, “Kind Jesus, have pity on me.” Some three or four times (says the Lancet) she was known to have left her bed momentarily during that period, otherwise she remained huddled up in bed, with the clothes drawn over her head. Her mother gave her apparently never more than two cups of milk in the 24 hours. When Caroline, in 1905, was told that her mother was dead, she burst into tears, but otherwise her condition remained exactly as before. Two years later, in 1907, the brother who had been deputed to feed her, as the mother had done, was accidentally drowned ; on hearing of this, the patient again had a violent outburst of tears. Then a housekeeper was obtained, and began to notice some curious tacts about the case. As Caroline was always left alone for some hours in the middle of the day, it was felt that she was doing much more for herselt than had hitherto been imagined. Eventually, on April 3rd, 1908, the patient suddenly said, “Where is mother ?” and when her brothers came into her room in astonishment she said, “You are not my brothers, they were so small.” Yet, curiously enough, she did not show any surprise at seeing the housekeeper in the room. From that day the patient’s condition uecame perfectly normal, and it has remained so ever since. Apart from complete amnesia for the events of 32 years, Caroline does not differ in any way from the normal individual. A doctor who investigated the case, states that he found no trace of disease or psychical defect. The suggestion is made that the awakening or reawakening of the instinct of selfpreservation, as the result of the mother’s death, was the step that led eventually to the complete recovery of the patient.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1014, 24 October 1912, Page 4
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398THIRTY-TWO YEARS’ STUPOR. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1014, 24 October 1912, Page 4
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