Examination of evidence and report to the Most Reverend James Whitfield ... upon the miraculous restoration of Mrs. Ann Mattingly, of the city of Washington, D.C. ... together with the documents / By the Right Reverend John England.

  • England, John, 1786-1842.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Examination of evidence and report to the Most Reverend James Whitfield ... upon the miraculous restoration of Mrs. Ann Mattingly, of the city of Washington, D.C. ... together with the documents / By the Right Reverend John England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    About this time (the summer of 1823) a hard and incessant cough super¬ vened, attended with hemoptysis, and frequently provoking, by its obstinacy, attacks of hematemesis, which threatened immediate strangulation, and re¬ duced her to the lowest ebb of life. In the month of February, 1824, a regular chill and fever came on about four o’clock every afternoon. From long confinement to a recumbent posture, the shoulders and loins of the patient became ulcerated. The attending physician frequently declared that her “ case was out of the reach of medicine,” and prescribed only palliatives. The sulphate of quinine was tried, but, the stomach rejecting it, it was discontinued, and laudanum in large doses repeated. On the night of the 9th of March, 1824, tinnitus aurium, and an almost inaudible voice, appeared to be the precursors of dissolution. Between 4 and 5 o’clock, A. M., of the 10th March, to the astonishment and even terror of her friends, she asked for her stockings, drew them on, and left her bed, and, excepting her loss of flesh and color, seemed to be suddenly re¬ stored to health. The tumor had disappeared; the ulcers of her back had healed, without leaving a vestige (not even a cicatrix) of their late ravages. Her breath, lately so intolerably fetid and disgusting, was become pleasant, and a sweet taste substituted for the very disagreeable one which had so long existed in her mouth. She could now use her left arm as well as ever, and could throw it into any posture she chose, without occasioning the slightest pain. In flne, she proved to be suddenly restored to health, and immediately underwent the fatigue of receiving the visits of hundreds of persons, who crowded to see her, without exhaustion oi^^^nvenience. From that time to the present she has continued to enjoy excell^t health, and, with many others, is a living witness to the truth of these statements. She and her attendants being questioned, denied that any abscess had dis¬ charged, whether internally or externally, and asserted that the tumor con¬ tinued to the moment of her restoration, increased in size, hard, inflamed, and painful. I shall here inform you, that this history was not drawn up by me, nor under my supervision. Upon my return hither, I put all the doc¬ uments into the hands of a respectable Protestant physician, and re¬ quested of him to draw from them such a statement as his own judg¬ ment would suggest. After carefully studying them he compiled the above relation. I then divided it myself into its several propositions, and carefully noted the passages of the several documents by which each proposition was sustained ] and seeing the impossibility of evading their single or collected truth, I addressed to the highly respectable and numerous body of our physicians in this place the following cir¬ cular, accompanying the statement itself: The following case is respectfully submitted to the medical faculty of Charles¬ ton, with a full conviction of the perfect and absolute truth of the facts therein stated. I would take it as a great favor to be informed whether, in the supposition of that truth, the gentlemen of the faculty, or any of them, can account for the sudden restoration upon any natural principle. In submitting the case, I must state that there existed a circumstance which could not by any means either naturally produce or aid in naturally producing the result, but which is calculated to lead to the conclusion that the etfect was produced by the miraculous interference of the Creator. Upon this I propose no question. I merely request to be informed whether the faculty can assign