The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1877-03-08
The Awful Fate OF a Young New
,.I Yorker. D.
New York Mercury.

"A very singular case mas laCely come
to light in one of the fashionable board
lighthouses situated on Twenty.third
Street, next door to the Catholic Church
of st. Vincent dc Paul. Washington
and his cherry-tree have been outdons,
and the facts are so curious as to give
them almost the color of fiction; yet
they are vouched for by responsible
parties. who have studied the phenome-
non from its inception. Last summer
a bright, healthy young man, residing in
the house in question, partook freely of
cherry pie, dish of which he was
exceedingly fond, and, by some inadver-
lance, swallowed cherry-stone. He
thought nothing of the occurrence at
the time, rs it caused him no material
inconvenience; but at the end of week
or ten days he was seized with violent
pains in the stomach, from which the
simple remedies at hand offered him no
relief. 1t was pitiable to witness his
sufferings, so intense and excruciating
did they appear to be. The young man
continued tosuffer, and grew thinner and
paler day by day. At the end of six
weeks he had become so feeble that he
was compelled to leave his business and
confine himself to bed. His mother, an
estimable lady, who resided in the
interior of the state, was sent for and
nursed him assiduously day and night.
The most discouraging thing in the
whole case was that none of the physi-
clans who were called in could determine
the character of his disease. The symp-
toms were entirely unique. The young
man whose name was Henderson-the
Christian name being withheld at the re-
quest of relatives-said that he ex-
perienced sensation as if something
were gradually spreading among and
tying up his intestines. The physicians
arrived at the conclusion that he was
afflicted with worms, and treated him
accordingly, but with no effect. What
ever the disease was, ii seemed to battle
the pharmacopeia, and the doctors and
the heart-broken mother were obliged to
stand idly by and see young Henderson
die before their eyes. In the meantime
his suffering increased. Sleep was almost
a stranger to him, and he complained
more and more of the peculiar feeling of
a vitality in the intestines distinct from
his own. After lying for four months,
he died in great agony. Weak as he
was, he seemed TO be possessed of
fictitious strength, and at the time of his
exertions in the paroxysms of agony to
which he was subjected, two could with
difficulty hold him on the bed. After
young Henderson's death, the case had
excited so much attention in medical
circles, the consent of the mother was
obtained to an autopsy being made upon
the body. Invitations were sent to several
physicians of the city, and the investiga-
ton commenced of what was to be a
cause celeber in medical history. On
opening the body, incredible as it may
appear, twas discovered that the cherry
stone had sprouted in the stomach of the
young man. The assembled
doctors could hardly credit the testimony
Of their own eyes, palpab,e although it
was before them. BY some peculiar
process the cherry-stone, after having
become lodged in young Henderson's
had actually sprouted as
thrifty as if it had been planted in the
ground. The strange pains in the young
man were now accounted for, for pro-
ceeding from the cherry-stone were
shoots of fibers which had ramified |
throughout the intestines of the victim,
and, in some instances, had coiled them
selves tightly around them In the |
vicinity of the heart there we're num-
Der of these shoots, and one Of them,
arger than the rest, in pressing upon
his organ, had been the immediate
cause OF death. Of these shoots there
we're in all fourteen, varying in length
rom three to nine inches. In color they
we're white, with faint yellowish green
inge toward the base. The shoot which
had pressed against young Henderson's
leart was considerably thicker and
anger than the rest, and had peculiar
eddish tinge, which the others had not.
The shoots were so closely twined and
visited around the intestines that it was
ound impossible to remove them, andso
hey have not been preserved to science.
The case, however, was 80 entirely sui
eneris that in all probability full and
account of ID will be written
nd published by the physicians and
urgeons interested in it. What has been
ecorded here is a plain unvarnished
tatement of fact, stripped of all techni-
alities or speculations.