A BRAVE GIRL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1879, Page 1

A BRAVE GIRL.

The Olean (Tnd,) Time* states :— Living ia a plain cottage situated between two farms on the main settlement near Portland, about seven miles from Olean, is a young woman named Mary Langdon. Her mother has been almost a helpless invalid for many years. She herself has long suffered with a terrible cancer on the upper part of her left arm. To cure this or to alleviate the torment of mind and body which it has caused, has been her constant thought, hee ever-present care. The aid of competent physicians has been called in, and every kind oi treatment resorted to, but with no hopeful result. Expert medical men pronounced the case a hopeless one, and the poor girl was regarded by all, and by herself, as the doomed victim of the dreadful disease. A lady doctor, of reputed skill in the treatment of cancer, recently visited the sufferer, but gave no word of encouragement. After she had gone, Mary shed no tears, but resolved upon a desperate and dangerous expedient,

and, when she had resolved, speedily carried her design into execution. She ran a stout needle beneath the cancer, drawing a thread through it. With thi3 thread she tied the artery, using her teeth to aid her. Then she took a sharp table knife and cut the cancer, which was of unusual size, out of her arm. This done, she took the mass of quivering flesh which she had removed from her arm, and, without a word, to anyone, buried it in the rear of the cottage. So quietly had the girl gone through with the terrible operation that no one in the house was aware of ifc until some time after. Having bound up and covered the terrible wound in her arm, she went about her household work as usual. Of course the result of this fearful piece of surgery is difficult to predict. The girl is not at present suffering ill-effects, and it is sincerely to be hoped that so much courage and endurance will be rewarded by a complete cure.