A woman who regularly ate some horse radish baffled doctors who thought she had worms. It was found to be horse radish sprouts.
” A NEW BED OF HORSE-RADISH.- The Boston Gazette of Tuesday has the following strange account:- ‘A young women, servant in a very respectable family in this town, has been, ever since the autumn of 1814, afflicted with a singular complaint, which baffled medical staff. According to report, she had for a length of time voided long strips of matter supposed to be worms, but which proved to be sprouts of horse-radish! Her health has late much improved, but her amendment is said to have been preceded by the extraordinary circumstance of two pieces of the ends of horse-radish, of the natural appearance, and about half an inch each in length, having come from her! The affair is accounted for by the young women’s confession that she has been in the practice, when she had horse-radish given her to scrape, of swallowing large pieces of it.’ ”
Stamford Mercury, 24th May, 1816.