The autobiography of Elizabeth Squirrell of Shottisham, and selections from her writings : together with an examination and defence of her statements relative to her sufferings, blindness, deafness, entire abstinence from food and drink during twenty-five weeks, and other extraordinary phenomena: also facts and opinions illustrative and suggestive / by one of her watchers.

  • Squirrell, Elizabeth, 1838-
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The autobiography of Elizabeth Squirrell of Shottisham, and selections from her writings : together with an examination and defence of her statements relative to her sufferings, blindness, deafness, entire abstinence from food and drink during twenty-five weeks, and other extraordinary phenomena: also facts and opinions illustrative and suggestive / by one of her watchers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MARY ELIZABETH SQUIRRELL. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. In sending forth these pages, I design to furnish, more fully than has been hitherto done, the facts of a case 'whicli has excited great interest, not only in its immediate neighborhood but through- out the country—more, probably, than those facts have warranted; as it is by no means eertain that all its peculiarities are of such rare occurrence as some have imagined. It is, however, sufficiently marvellous to overtax the faith of those whose observation or reading has not furnished them with cases at all similar. I was, myself, unprepared to bchevo it until, by examination, I found it was more difficult to reject than to give credit to its claims. My confidence was afterwards shaken by the statements of some members of the ‘ second watch’ ; but by a scrutiny of their report, the explanation given by the Squirrells, the report of the ‘third watch’, and by a more close and extended inquiry into the whole affair, I became