Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-07-24
A Wonderful Snake Story

For many months past it has been re-
ported that young lady living near
Christiana, in this county, was afflicted
in a very singular manner, and a great
many said she was possessed either of a
devil or a reptile of some character,
which was located in her stomach. Many
had been the remarks thereabout, some
affirming its possibility, while others
" hooted" at the bare mention of such
thing. The interest had continued to in
crease in regard to it until at different
times most all the physicians in that end
of the county had visited the afflicted
young lady, and we might say without
exaggeration two-thirds of the people of
the same section. The grand culmina-
ton, however, was reached on Friday
night last, Goth of June, by it's extraction
from the stomach of the girl by DR.. J. M.
Burger of the heretofore moOted" thing"
which was nothing more nor less than
live snake twenty-three inches long and
two-thirds of an inch in diameter. The
girls. name is Thankful Taylor. Her
father is dead and her mother has since
married her present husband, William
Carroll. Her age is twenty-five years
and since her infancy she has been more
or less delicate at times. She first was
troubled with the snake about four years
ago, and since that time it has continued
to grow worse, until for the past two
years her life has been almost continual
ly one of pain and trouble. When she
felt the motions of the snake in her stom-
ach they were frequently perceptible
across the room, with an ordinary bed
quilt over her, and were generally upon
one or the other side of her stomach. She
world nd flvy
SO severe it would produce commissions;
she would lose her mind, and remain
sometimes in death-like state for TWEEN
ty-four or thirty-six hours. AT times her
suffering was so great her skin would
split open, and the flesh upon her head
split so much it became necessary to cut
her hair off very short, in which condi-
ton it is now, and the scars are percepti-
BILE to all. She frequently remarked on
the goth it was coming, up soon, and just
after dark on that evening, as the family
were seated about the door and some of
them on the outside, she arose from her
pallet on the floor, rushed out of the
west door of the cabin, and in strang-
ling manner ran some fifteen or twenty
steps and fell upon her knees The fam
lily, supposing her in a spasm, ran after
her and her little brother, reaching her
first, called back to his mother that that
thing was in sis mouth" Her STEP
brother caught and held her from behind,
she all the while making desperate eff
forts to get loose, and appeared strang-
ling to death. Her mother found "the
thing" in her mouth, as though it had
come up head foremost and in going
back the same way had doubled itself,
making loop, in which she put her fin
ger and held it until the doctor came,
who had been sent for instantly, and ar
rived in few minutes from his home,
some 400 yards off the way he had to
come. The mother, remembering the
doctors injunctions, held fast, and as it
tried to worm itself back into the stom-
ach she called upon her daughter to close
her teeth upon it, which her daughter
says she did, and there is certainly upon
the snake, just where she would have
taken hold, unmistakable signs of marks
that might have been made by teeth. So
soon as the doctor arrived he took hold
of it and drew it out, it making efforts to
get down, but coming up with the use of
but little strength. The girl has now re-
covered.-Muafreesboro (7enp.) Ne,os.