REMARKABLE CASE OF EMACIATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 60, 11 March 1878, Page 4

REMARKABLE CASE OF EMACIATION.

(From the Sydney Morning Herald, Feb. 22.)

Dr Danspy, the medical officer of health for Sydney, has drawn our attention to an extraordinary instance of the above, the case being that of a woman living in Chippendale. She presents a most repulsive appearance, and at first sight, from her unfemtciae features, give one the idea that she is a boy. Lying on a wooden stretcher, sometimes on her side, but generally on her back, the legs are drawn up in a fearfully distorted manner, and she is quite unable to put herself into a straight posture. The legs, indeed, nearly form'the letter X, although, of course, they are closer together at the thighs than at the feet, where they are widely distended. They can je moved to a certain extenf, but not without iuflicting considerable pain on the sufferer ; the knee joints are absolutely fixed crosswise, and therefore one part of the leg cannot be moved without the remainder. There is barely an ounce of flesh on the legs, nothing being visible but skin and bone. The arms also are fixed in a somewhat similar manner at the joints, although they do not actually cross each other ; at the muscular part above the elbow the circumference is not more than 6in t> and the other parts are in proportion to this. Here, too, are nothing but bones and the coverings. An open wound on the left elbow evidently shows tbat the poor woman had been rolling over or trying to move her arm 3, and in doing so had come in frequent contact with the wall. The whole body, indeed, is bo utterly destitute of flesh, almost every boue being plainly disceruable, that it may not be inaptly termed a living skeleton. The sufferer is almost a mute, but that she has intelligence is proved by the fact that she cried bitterly when the doctor made a suggestion that she should be placed in an asylum; she also made a slight motion with her hand when she was asked, as a test, to shake hands. The mother states that her daughter was born in California in 1851. and she must therefore be about 27 years of age ; ehe was not then malformed, bnt soon after her birth she contracted the habit of sitting crosslegged in a chair. Ab there is nothing the matter with the spiae, this may in some measure account for the distortion. An effort is being made to obtain her removal to an institution for imbeciles.