This account comes from the Marcellus Donatus book Admirable histories of Phisicke and from Cornelius Gemma’s account in his own book De naturae divinis characterismis.
A young maiden whose father was a cooper being fifteen years old, of good spirit of a melancholic complexion mixed with sanguin. Her name was Katherine Gaulthier. Fell sick and weak through diverse accidents. About the month of January in the year 1571, her monthly terms advanced twice or thrice but stayed present during the whole of her illness. It caused a great weariness over all her body. It was suspected that she had been poisoned by a certain woman of ill fame who what given her a piece of cake.
Eating it, she felt it painful to swallow after which she began to feel strange pains in her stomach. She grew lean, vomited sometimes, her stomach failed her she she felt a dizziness in her head. With other accidents which torment women with child, especially in the 4th and 7th month.
For about mid June she was subject to fevers and some kind of convulsions. Her pains did increase so as like a mad woman she tormented herself. Growing big, pale and short winded and in the end she was so oppressed with pain that she grew black in the face like she had been strangled.
She was so tormented so as four men could scarcely hold her from casting herself from the bed to the ground. There was no kind of convulsion but it did afflict her. These pangs having continues into fits in the 9th month, her parents began to contact the physicians. I was called because I lived the nearest, but being from home they repaid magister Beausard. Who considered this disease to be caused by worms. It happened after many grievous pangs that nature working by her force made her void a quick eel which was brought to me. It was a big eel thick as a man’s thumb, a foot and a half long (ca 48 cm) with good proportions and all parts intact. Three days before it appeared both the maid and those that were around her heard a great noise as there was a hissing from her belly. The maid had said that she had felt the eel put forth its head before and draw it back again only to then thrust forth so suddenly and with violence. This eel remained among the excrements seemed for a long time to be dead, but when put into a pot of water it did stir for a long time. After the voiding of it the pangs which had tormented her so much began to cease. But there’s which they had ripped and cleansed and then hanged up where neither cat nor any other beast could reach it vanished in an instant.
Soon after the maid began to cast up a great abundance of water, the which I came to see being like urine and of strange taste as the patient said. This vomiting continued for 15 days in every one of which she voided about 24 pounds weight of water from the mouth. I don’t report these things by hearsay but for that I did see and touched them with my hands. I was no less amazed to see that beside this great abundance of water which she voided from her mouth she made water in great abundance twice or thrice a day without any swelling of her belly or any other part of her body. Neither did she drink above one cup of wine or beer or any other liquor in a day. I asked her if she felt no pain in one of the “miseriacall veins” she answered me that her left side had always troubled her much since the voiding of the eel and that before she had some heaviness in that place. But since she was troubled with great gnawing and pricking which caused her to cry out when I touched her with just my finger. After she had vomited so much water she began to cast forth lumps of hair from her mouth some as long as a man’s finger some more some less such as we see fall from old dogs in great quantity.for certain days enough to have stuffed a dozen of tennis balls. She cast them up with great heaving and great heartburn falling one night into wonderful trance. Having found her in like someone who was ready to give up the ghost and carefully observing all things being laid upon her belly. I did see her cast her self so violently from one side to the other as if she had not been held she would have beat her head against the wall or the bedpost
She held her hands so strongly together that it was impossible to open them. Sometimes she beat her breast so violently as she would kill herself. These fits continued from seven at night until nine and then she knew not any one. Oftentimes (as in suffocation of the matrix [womb]) she grew wonderfully red and seemed very weary and toiled with some beginning of a fever. Once or twice she foamed at the mouth. An other time being in the extremity of her fit she fell suddenly into a great laughter and then suddenly wept bitterly. Before becoming herself and falling into a long ecstasy, she began in an instant to speak as if she had addressed herself unto God. Heralding her hands up to heaven she spoke these words in effect:
O great god seeing thy beauty is so great and incredible, how long shall we remain here? When wilt thou take me out of this world, that I may enjoy thee?
Having said this as she saw awaking and looking on them that were in the room she said:
Which of you hath done me this wrong to call me back here into this valley of misery and into the prison of darkness when as I did rest so sweetly and did sport myself in the goodliest gardens that could be imagined?
I do not thing that a simple and ignorant maid (as this was) could utter such worlds but in ecstasy. In the meantime she cast up great lumps of hair mixed with much white matter and very thick. Sometimes like the dung of pigeons or geese. In this abundance of filth appeared little pieces of of wood and shreds of parchment. And a little after she had another vomiting of a matter as black as coal, you could have said it had been ink rather than coal beaten to a powder and mixed with water. This continued for a good while, two or three pounds ever day sometimes with such store of white hair long and hard as it would have made a good ball. After two days she did vomit about two points of pure blood as if a vein had been opened. This monstruos casting continued a whole week coming to a still at a certain hour and then the fits of epilepsy where with she was daily tormented ceased, the which notwithstanding continued sometimes. Once in three days and in the end every seventh day. In the meantime she did still cast hair but not so abundant as before but blacker and shorter as if they had been cut small and with a slimy humour like unto thick matter.
At the mid of September she did vomit great pieces of parchment, half a span long like thick and fleshy skin of a man’s body. Afterwards she cast up other that were thinner but all black. In the end she did vomit some that were very thin but strong amongst the which there were three a foot long made in fashion of lozenges with strange marks and figures. After these skins followed an infinite number of stones which she did cast up at a certain hour every night with great noise and sounding such as is heard when walls are torn down. Some were thick, others pointed unequal in form and of a dark colour they were all small and yet such size as it was feared that the maid would have been strangled. Some were covered with chalk and cemented together in such a way that they could have been pulled out of a wall. Once in my presence she did vomit a pointed stone as big as two chestnuts. This stone reminded about a quarter of an hour in ther throat during the which he had no pulse nor respiration. So as if laying a feather upon her mouth it not move, her hands and feet grew cold and her body stiff as it had been an image.
Thinking that she had finished her course and that pain had ended all her miseries. I went out of the chamber saying that she was dead, when the mother called me back suddenly back again, saying that daughter did stir and opened her eyes. As soon as I returned she did cast up this stone with great violence. I did see it come forth and heard the noise thereof falling into a basin, the which did amaze both myself and all that were in the chamber. At the same time she did spit out a piece of wood as big as one’s thumb but with less difficulty then the stone, and with some few black hairs. There followed another accident almost incredible where the maid had almost been choked for she did vomit up a bone in the shape of a triangle solide on the outside and hollow spongelike on the inside. The next day she cast up little bones of diverse forms and proportions. Amongst all these there seen stones and hair and pieces of glass and copper.
Cornelius Gemma set down the remedies which he applied and maintains that part of her infirmity grew by natural causes and part by the impostures and illusions of the devil who was a chief agent in these accidents which we have reported.
This history is written by Marcellus Donatus in his second book of admirable histories of phisicke.
I will not try to speculate what poor Katherine was afflicted by since I’m not a doctor. I tried to find more information regarding to hopefully have conclusion but I haven’t been able to find acquire the other books mentioned in this text.
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