Miraculous.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 10502, 25 November 1901, Page 3

Miraculous.

Two returning visitors from Hanmer Springs by Wednesday's train gayo a correspondent of the Lyttelton Times particulars of an extraordinary result of the late earthquake, in connection with a patient now at. the sanatorium. Briefly, the details are as follows: — Some weeks ago a powerfully-built man of splendid physique was admitted to the Hanmer institution, suffering acutely from rheumatic gout." 'He could only manage to get about a little by the aid of a pair of crutches, which he ultimately exchanged for a couple of stout sticks. Up till' last Saturday morning he could be seen painfully dragging his legs after him — first one and then the other — like a chronic sufferer from locomotor ataxia. The muscles and sinews under and about his knees hod long been contracted, and were almost inflexible, while his feet were disfigured and swollen. When the severest earthquake_shock was experienced at Hanmer he was outside in the grounds of the sanatorium;' and the rocking of the ground beneath him so affected his lower limbs that the muscular contraction disappeared, the long ' disused sinews became pliable again, and the poor fellow, to his unspeakable joy and relief, found that he could successfully walk. He is still able to walk with facility and comparative freedom from pain. His feet and toes still remain swollen and disfigured, however, and that is why he has not quitted the institution. But he has been heard fervently praying that another earth convulsion may come along, and at il-.e earliest possible date, so that his .'■ ot and legs may be completely restored (o their normal condition.