Phenix Gazette

Primary Location

Wilmington, (Del.)

Event Date

Sunday Last

Key Persons

Outcome

a full grown mouse, dead, and one worm, were expelled from the child. the child had become very much emaciated, and its piercing cries, at times, were insupportably distressing.

Event Details

A child, about fourteen months old, in the neighborhood of this borough, had been suffering from some singular disease for upwards of six months, and for the last three months experienced the most excruciating pain. Its parents, supposing its illness to proceed from worms, administered the remedies usual in such cases, but with little effect. On Sunday last they consulted Dr. Vaughan, who, after hearing their narration, agreed with them in opinion, and thinking that a more powerful dose was all that was necessary, accordingly gave it. The next day a full grown Mouse, dead, and one worm, were expelled from the child. The skin of the mouse was entirely destitute of hair, and so transparent that the animal could be seen through. The parents state that their children had several times discovered nests of mice and brought the young ones into the house, and they suppose that on one of these occasions the infant had put one in its mouth, and that it entered the stomach, where it had lived until destroyed by the medicine which produced its removal. The mouse may be seen at the office of Dr. Vaughan, in East Third street, near the Lafayette Hotel. On this "singular circumstance" the Evening Post remarks— We remember to have read, in some of the medical journals, the case of a woman, who swallowed, as was supposed, several insects, of a curious shape, in water, and which lived a considerable time in her stomach. The history of the case was accompanied by a figure of the insects. We have heard of people swallowing pins, needles, and penknives, and sometimes living animals—of which latter nothing more was heard, except that the persons making this experiment on the powers of the stomach were somewhat sickened by it. But that a mouse should mistake a child's mouth for its own hole, and run down the throat, and make its habitation out of the reach of atmospheric air, and in continual danger of being drowned by the liquids from above, is taxing our credulity to a great extent. We will not say that the story is not true, but the exhibition of the mouse is not quite conclusive as to the fact. This sort of evidence reminds us of the honest country lad, who "knew that his father had killed a bear, because he had seen the gun."