The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-06-19
AGIRLt s STRENGEHEBIT.
From gebyhood to womanhood
Her Diet Was Hair.
II TWENTY SHE BECAME I'LL
And Was Starving TO Death..-Her
Disease Puzzled the Doctors.--wbat
an Operation Reyealed.--Rcmark
able Case of a Beautiful Young
Girl In Now York.

an Operation observation-disclosures
able Case of a Beautiful Young
Girl In Now York.
Ses Yors DspqseA,
One OF the most peculiar habits on
record was that OF Mary Preston, beau
tiiul young girl, who took the prize ut
the Cooper Institute art school for the
finest crayon sketch, She is highly ed
ucated, an expert musician, speaks sew
eral languages and moves in the best
society. No one would ever dream that
there was anything eccentric in her
composition, because she hid her PEE
culiar practice under the veil Of secrecy.
She began it when she was q little girl,
continued it through childhood, and
only stopped when the surgeons knife
got in its fine work. Her habit was eat
ing hair. It did not make any differ
ence whose hair II was or what the
color. According 10 her own story, she
could not have been more than three
years Of age when she began to chew
The ends OF her long eurls. Her hair
was beautiful shade OF auburn, sweet
enough almost for anyone to eat; that
Is. Il ones taste ran in that direction.
Little Miss Preston chewed off her curls
and swallowed the mouthfuls OF hal T
with as much pleasure as the ordinary
child would
APIECE OF CANDY.
No one knew anything about it.
There we're not any bad symptoms SO
far as is known, and she did not have
anything more than the ordinary sick
ness Of childhood. II is hard to CON
ceiye where she could have got q liking
for hair, but she bad it and it grew with
age like all other habits.
When she got old enough to think
and to know better she tried to break
OF the hair diet. The longest that she
ever went without hair as q regular
stinulant was when she cut her eye
teeth, md then her jaws were too sore
70 chew. Hair does not slip down the
esophagus like a raw oyster, as any one
wiltfnd out by trying to swallow even
q single hair. Sometimes Miss Preston
confesses that she would have some
trouble in getting q mouthful of hair
Z 10 pass the epiglottis, but the difficulty
was easily overcome by mixing 1t with
a fig or orange:
Miss Preston did not recognize tho
vice in others by example, and her par
ents and schoolmates never knew what
she did when alone. She was ashamed
Of the habit. She did not rely on her
own hair to furnish a supply of the de-
licious dainty, but let her pin money go
for switches, She bought hair from
BARRIERS, horse-clipping establishments
and dog fanciers under various pre-
lenses, so that she had change OF diet,
and was not confined to the monotony
Of plain
EVERYDAY HUMAN HAIR.
She drew the line on the woplof the
colored man, but lambs wool was a
luxury that she enjoyed in season with
as much relish as the ordinary citizen
does his limb chop. Howmany pounds
of hair she ate from the tin she began
until her twentieth year will never be
known. She has no idea, but says that
never a day passed without her getting
away with q large handful.
She became very i'll on her return
from Europe about year ago. Prob
ably foreign hair did notagree with her
cultivated taste. She had a severe gas
trio trouble, and all food that she took
was rejected almost as quickly US it was
swallowed. Her case puzzled the ply:
stcfans. There was no evidence OF
tumor, and the slightest symptoms OF
cancer could not be detected. The doc.
tors believed that there was q cancer OF
the intestine, near the pyloric orifce,
which affected the action OF the stomach
by sympathy. She was starving to
death, and to give her relief it was de
cided by DIR. Arbuckle, the consulting
surgeon of ST. Luke's hospital, to make
an opening into the stomach from the
side, through which she could be fed.
Alter q special course OF tonic treat
ment she was placed upon the operating
table and given an antesthehc.
THE INcIsloN
was made in the left side, about five
inches long, and the stomach and intes-
tines we're exposed. The most careful
examination OF the stomach and other
organs externally failed to show the
slightest evidence OF sarcoma, and
there was nothing TO warrant the con-
tinuance of the operation. The Stom-
ach was enlarged somewhat, but moth.
ing remarkable. The wound was closed
in the abdomen.