The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-05-26
A WONDERFUL CASE.
A DOCTOR LIVING ONLY IN HIS
HEAD TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
Every Joint Fast Bound and His
Body and Limbs Wasted to
the Bone-Unable to
Move or See.

SAO AoAS- W
Move or See.
On pillow in little back parlor Of
q house on Lafayette avenue, Brooklyn,
rests the intellectual head of DR.. Charles
F. Reed, ffty-six years old, who has not
been able to move hand or foot or turn
in his bed since he was thirty y-four. He
lives only in his head, lJr every joint Is
fast bound and his body and limbs are
wasted to the bone.
His eyes are sigbtless, his neck stiff,
his jaws set so close as to prevent him
from taking any food unless it be in very
soft or liquid form, and shoulder joints,
elbows, wrists, finger joints, hips, knees
and toes arc immovable. The knees are
drawn up, the left knee joint is almost
thrown from its socket, the right foot IS
turned so far outward Us almost to turn
backward. A white mustache and beard
that Rip Van Wrinkle would have envied
covered the lower part of face strong
in outline and full off, character. Around
this sufferers bed. where 80 heavy cross
has been laid, gather almost daily people
who come to get consolation in trouble.
DR.. Reed is philosopher, and his cheer
full disposition in spite of the extreme
hardness of his lot has made him the
wonder of everybody who knows him
Those who have lost friends call there to
learn lesson in fortitude, and all who
meet the doctor say they 60 away with
new ideas offiife and its purposes. He
is well-read in every branch Of litera-
ture.
DR.. Reed was born in Woburn, Mass,
and worked on a farm until he was of
age, when he began the study of medi-
cine, which he continued in New York
and Cleveland. In 1864 he was in charge
of sanitarium at Kenosha, Wis, and his
sickness, which has led him q life in tho
midst of death, first came upon him at
Kenosha. he had inherited rheumatism,
and contracted malaria in the West.
These diseases seized him about nine
o'clock at night on September 6, 1864,
and he has not moved since. When thu
burning fever he suffered began to pass
away and the sensitiveness of the joints
grew gradually less, he felt the joints
stiffening, and in the fingers and toes he
now has complete anchylosis. In other
words, the joints have grown into solid
bone. He weighed 200 pounds and was
tall and vigorous when he was taken
sick. In few years he was reduced to
a skeleton.
DR.. Reed now suffers from toothache,
and nothing can be done for him because
his jaws are set and the teeth cannot be
pulled, and even the relief of toothache
drops is denied him. When his sight left
him, thirteen years ago, sensation OF
always looking at the full blaze of the
MONDAY sun took possession of the left
eye, and the doctor suffers the most in
tense pain.
DR.. Reed was married in 1858, and
during all his suffering his wife has re-
mained faithfully day and night at her
helpless husbands bedside. At first two
men were required to lift him. The
money saved from lucrative practice
dwindled, and with exigencies of tho
case the doctor invented kind of der
rick, with two arms and hosting cranks,
by means of which his Iwife can easily
move him from the bed while it is being
made. Bands and straps are placed
under him, and he is raised above the
bed. He was'brought to New York by
his wife in 1868. Before the bones
soidifed his spine was affected, and as
the trouble slowly worked upward the
muscles of the body contracted and com.
pressed his ribs so that at one time ha
nearly died by having the breath
squeezed out of him. He was troubled
with nervousness, and when he was
asleep his jaw would suddenly snap
open and close again so quickly and
violently that he several times bit
through his tongue. If any one crossed
the floor the iarring made him wild
with pain. through his spine. The
feather bed had to be made up with
hollow center, that his spine might not
touch anything. 1t required four men
to hold him that he might 60 to sleep,
as the twitching. of his limbs was beyond
his own control. -,
The doctor has never suffered from
headache. A curious phase of the dis
ease is that he lies awake from about
II o'clock at night until 2 in the morn
ing, and on the following day succumbs
to irresistible sleepiness at precisely the
corresponding hours-11 A. NJ. till 2 P. N.
Even if he goes to sleep early in tho
evening he wakes about II at night, and
the curious sleep follows next day at
II A. N.
"I attribute my disease to an an acci-
dental prick from surgical instrument
while I was dissecting in Cleveland"
said the doctor yesterday. "Malaria
and rheumatism combined to thoroughly
poison my system and bring me to this
State. had very offensive post-mortem
about the same time and breathed so
much foul air that I was sick for two
weeks. I contracted malaria while in
Illinois. I read a great deal when first
stricken down, and when lost my sight
my wife took this new burden upon her.
In 1876 l had nervous prostration. 1have
been looking for death these many years,
but when one wants him to come he is
very slow COACH"
'sFor seven years." said Mrs. Reed, ;she
laid here without even knowing how the
street in front of the house looked. He
used to say that the misery he suffered
gathered in the very walls and was re-
fected back upon him. Then a COM
mittee of ladies made it possible for me
to take him into Vermont, and he sat all
day in the sunshine, and oh, it did him
80 much good. He came back in so much
better health, but the long winter indoors
L