STRANGE STORY OF A HAIR.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3077, 27 December 1878, Page 1

STRANGE STORY OF A HAIR.

In looking over a hotel register in Chicago, a reporter saw the name of a prominent Southern doctor whom he had formerly quite well known. In conversing with him he heard the following:—lt was fire years since that I was called up to attend a bright * mulatto woman, said to be suffering from cancer. I gare her my very best attention, and as the awful destroyer was but in the incipiency of its force, I cut it out, and succeeded in saving the woman's life. The w'ound 1 healed, and to all appearance was uninterfsred with. Two years later the woman was one day seized withiT.^olenfc contortions, when.she was apparent ty la the enjoyment of the very best of health* and fell to the fl°°r» crying out that the/* was a needle piercing her heart. In a tSbort time the pain subsided and she was immediately restored to her normal condition, experiencing no unpleasant results lVom the" incident. But the fits became more frequent, and two months from that &f were of daily occurrence. I had b«en summoned, but I could not make out the peculiar disorder. I found it was foreign to anything of the kind that had ever come under my notice as a practitioner. I called in some brother professionals, and we had along consultation, attempting to diagnose the case. All our efforts were in vain. Finally, to make a long story short, the girl died in the midst of one of her paroxysms. It was decided to hold a postmortem examination of the body as it was believed there would be some interesting revelations. The girl had always complained of a pain in the heart though there was no evidence of heart disease. At the time of the first attack she said a needle was penetrating her heart. We concluded, naturally enough, that the heart was in some measure the cause of ailment. . We accordingly cut it out,'and here is the remarkable part of the story. Running transversely through the upper right corner of the heart was. a filiform something, which, upon closer examina- , ivion, proved to be a coarse black hair. Tracing this with the utmost care, we fouud that one end led into the lung of the unfortunate girl, while the other led x«p towards the armpit of the left side. What prompted me 140 not know, but I looked to the old cancer wound which was left on the left breast, nearly under the arm. I there found a hair ft mowing into the wound. It had ■

grown out an inch above the place where the cancel* had been, and in attending to that affliction the hair had been introduced into the wound. It had, by some almost impossible process of nature, gone on growing towards the vitals of the woman until it pierced her heart, and began .coiling in her lungs producing a hemorrhage of the latter. We took the hair out in three parts, and upon a measurement it proved to be twenty three feet in length. I have this, astonishing case up, and design publishing it shortly with several medical disquisitions upon •it from some of the ablest pens in the South.