ON HUMAN HORNS. 
521 
same regularity and exactness, the characters were very pretty, the 
lines were all even, arid the letters placed at equal distances from 
each other; but the most astonishing particular of all, with respect to 
her Writing, is, that she could by some means discover when a letter 
had by mistake been omitted, and would place it over that word where 
it should have been inserted, with a caret under it. She used to sit 
up in bed at any hour in the night, either to write or to work, when 
her pain or any other cause kept her awake. These circumstances 
were so extraordinary, that it was long doubted whether she had not 
some faint remains both of hearing and sight, and many experiments 
were made to ascertain the fact; some of these experiments she acci- 
dentally discovered, and the discovery always threw her into violent 
convulsions. The thought of being suspected of insincerity, or sup» 
posed capable of acting so wicked a part as to feign infirmities that 
were not inflicted, was an addition to her miseries which she could 
not bear, and which never failed to produce an agony of mind not 
less visible than those of her body. 
“A clergyman who found her one evening at work at a table with a 
candle upon it, put his hat between her eyes and the candle, in such 
a manner that it w'as impossible she could receive any benefit from 
the light of it, if she had had her sight. She continued still at her 
work with great tranquillity, till, putting up her hand suddenly, to 
rub her foreheatl, she struck it against the hat, and discovered what 
was doing; upon which she was thrown into violent convulsions, and 
was not without great difficulty recovered. The family were by 
these experiments, and by several accidental circumstances, fully con- 
vinced that she was totally deaf and blind, particularly by sitting 
unconcerned at her work during a dreadful storm of thunder and 
lightning, though she was then facing the window, and always used 
to be much terrified in such circumstances. 
But Sir Hans Sloane, her physician, being still doubtful of the 
truth of facts which were scarcely less than miraculous, was permitted 
to satisfy himself by such experiments and observations as he thought 
proper ; the issue of which was, that he pronounced her to be abso- 
lutely deaf and blind. She was at length sent to Bath, where she 
was in some measure relieved, her convulsions being less frequent, 
and her pains less acute ; but she never recovered her speech, her 
sight, or her hearing, in the least degree. Many of her letters, dated 
at Bath, in which there are some instances of interlineations with a 
caret, the writer of this narrative has seen, and they are now in the 
custody of the widow of one of her brothers, who, with many other 
persons, can support the facts here related, however wonderful, with 
such evidence as it would not only be injustice, but folly, to 
disbelieve.’^ 
On H TJMAN Horns. 
By Sir Everard HornSj Bart. F. R. S. 
Horny excrescences arising from the human head have not only 
occurred in this country, but have been met with in several other 
parts of Europe : and the horns themselves have been deposited as 
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