IN BED FOR 14 YEARS

Shannon News, 11 June 1926, Page 1

IN BED FOR 14 YEARS

MOTHER BEDRIDDEN 30 YEARS. A CLINICAL CURIOSITY. Brisbane has a female citizen to whom time is as nothing. Days and nights have become formless and seasonal changes vaguer year by year. She is in full possession of her intelligence and all her faculties, but though she is a native of the city it is doubtful whether she could find her way home if she were set down in the main street.

Fourteen years ago she took to her bed, and since then she has never left it. It is usual to associate a case of this nature with a condition of paralysis or some disease which either tends to bodily inertia or makes it necessary, but the woman in question has nothing of the sort. Medical men who have seen her have admitted that there is no apparent reason why she should have kept to her bed forrguch a length of time. They regard her as somewhat of a clinical curiosity. What makes this case more interesting is that this penchant for long spells in bed appears to be a family peculiarity, and it raises the question as to the susceptibility of the average female to auto suggestion. The woman is a Miss Tearie, of Maryvale Street, Toowong, and the family have lived in Brisbane for more than half a century. Mrs. Tearie the mother, died two or three years ago, but for thirty years prior to her death she had remained in bed and by her family and others was regarded as a confirmed invalid.

" The medical profession has a formidable name for such a conditio" as that of Miss Tearie. They call it pscudo hypertropic muscuHar... dystrophy, which, translated into intellible language, means an> apparently wel-nourished body rendered inert by a badly-nourished muscular system. It might also be taken to mean that if the person so affected, were to take exercise the inertia would be minimised, if not dissipated entirely. In short, there is nothing very much wrong with the patient organically or arise in any other way, though there may arise a condition of noursis which ultimately would be incurable. "Writes for the ' Newspapers;" The relatives with whom Miss Tearie resides regard her as being just as much a confirmed invalid as was the mother, and take it as being in no wise peculiar that she should have resigned herself to such a pecuuiar existence.

"Smith's Weekly" was informed by a member of the family that it was some time, since her sister had been visited by a.doctor. "Really the doctors don't seem to know just what is the matter with her. They generally say is it nervesfl' 'she added. Auto suggestion closely allied with a disposition towards neurosis—by no means an uncommon feature of feminine ailments —appears to be the explanation of the Toowong case. What the mother did, so is the daughter doing. For instance, the mother was a chronic contributor to the open columns and was in the habit of writing most voluminous letters on a variety of subjects. These letters were written on sheets of foolscap, gummed length-wise, and sent to the newspapers.

The daughter, too, "writes for the newspapers." A well-known doctor, with whom the matter was discussed by "Smith's Weekly,'' advenced the theory of auto suggestion induced by neurosis, and in support of this quoted the- case of a certain fashionable school for girls, one of the pupils of which became subject to a female complaint of a minor nature. Th e sufferer was attended by a good-looking young doctor, and there followed a remarkable series of similar cases in the school until at last the majority of the pupils of the school were affected. However, (execellent progress was mad e toward rocovery in each case, the patients responding splendidly to treatment by the young doctor. Then the school authorities dispensed with the services of the doctor and employed a hard-faced old nurse to look after the girls. The complaint reappeared almost immediately. Not many cases similar to that of the late Mrs. Teale and her daughter are on record in Queensland, but there is one which occurred in Ipswich some time ago and which was not without its amusing features.

Brother to the Rescue A railway employee there, a married man with a small family, suddenly took to his bed and announced he did not feel well enough to go to work. A doctor was called in, but could find nothing wrong. Still the man remained in bed, and at the end of six weeks his wife, at her wits' ed to know Avhat to do, sent for her brother-in-law, who lives • at Cairns. On his arrival he adopted summary measures. A conversation with the "beddridden" man was sufficient to indicate a lino of action. Grasping him, together with Ms bedclothes and mattress the man from Cairns unceremoniously dumped his brother .on the floor. "I will giv e you a quarter of an hour-in which to dress, " he said, "If

you are not ready when I come back, I will have a piece of you." There was no argument about it. The man who evidently had induced himself to believe that he had become a helpless invalid is back on Ms feet again.