The Sleeping Girl of Turville

Ellen Sadler (15 May 1859 – October 1946), sometimes called The Sleeping Girl of Turville, was a resident of Turville, a small village in Buckinghamshire in the United Kingdom. In 1871, aged eleven, she reportedly fell asleep and did not wake for nine years. The case attracted international attention from newspapers, medical professionals and the public. Born to a large, impoverished family of farm workers, Ellen was sent to work as a nursemaid at the age of eleven. Soon afterwards, she began suffering periods of drowsiness and was referred to a local hospital. After four months, her condition was declared incurable, and she was sent home. Two days later, Ellen had a series of seizures and—her mother claimed—fell into a deep sleep from which she could not be roused. Ellen became a tourist attraction for the village, and her family made considerable money from visitors' donations. As the years progressed with no sign of Ellen's waking, speculation grew that her illness was either a hoax or caused by her mother, an issue that was never resolved. In late 1880, soon after her mother's death, Ellen awoke. She later married and had at least five children.

Background Ellen Sadler was born on 15 May 1859 to Ann and William Sadler, who lived in the small village of Turville, Buckinghamshire. The Sadlers were a large, impoverished family consisting mainly of farmhands; Ellen, the youngest child, shared her home with her eleven siblings. Ellen's father died while she was an infant; Ann Sadler subsequently married Thomas Frewen.

Illness

Initial symptoms In 1870, aged eleven, Ellen began work as a nursemaid in nearby Marlow, but she began suffering periods of somnolence and her employment was terminated. She was subsequently attended by a local doctor, Henry Hayman F.R.C.S., from nearby Stokenchurch. Ellen had been suffering for 13 weeks from "glandular swellings" or an abscess on the back of her head, and symptoms consistent with a spinal disease. The family did not have much money, so the parish vicar, The Reverend Studholme, asked Hayman to secure Ellen's admission to a local hospital, where her condition worsened. Ellen stayed at the hospital for 18 weeks before being "discharged as incurable" in March 1871.

Fall into unconsciousness

According to Ellen's mother, upon the girl's return home on a rickety cart, she began to feel drowsy and had several seizures. Hayman states that it was two days after her discharge that the seizures occurred. He visited Ellen at her home, where he was told that the previous night, 17 March, Ellen had endured a series of such attacks, after which she turned to lie "on her left side, with her hand under her head, and the lower extremities drawn upwards". It was in this position that—her mother maintained—Ellen remained for the duration of her sleep. Hayman visited Ellen many times over the next few years and he later said that he "never found her otherwise".

Ellen became something of a tourist attraction for Turville. She was visited by journalists, medical professionals, religious personnel and the "plain curious" from across the country, many of whom donated money to Ellen's family to be allowed to see her. Some paid to take cuts of Ellen's hair, until the "supply" began to run out. A Bucks Free Press journalist recounted his visit: Her breathing was regular and natural, the skin soft and the body warm, as in a healthy subject; the pulse rather fast. The hands were small and thin, but the fingers quite flexible; the body somewhat emaciated; the feet and legs like those of a dead child, almost ice cold ... the aspect of her features was pleasant, more so than might be expected under the circumstances ... her eyes and cheeks were sunken, and the appearance was that of death ... but although there was no colour on her cheeks, the paleness was not that heavy hue which betokens death. A correspondent from The Daily Telegraph visited Ellen about 22 months after she fell ill. He wrote:The girl's face is by no means cadaverous. There is flesh on the cheeks, which have a pinkish tint, and there is some colour in the thin lips. The eyes are calmly closed, as though in healthy sleep. I ventured to raise one of the lids and touch the eye beneath ... but there was not even a quivering of the eyelash. ... The girl's [hand] was quite warm and moist, and the finger nails were neatly trimmed. The fingers are not the least bit stiffened ... It is not a skeleton hand, neither are any of the girl's limbs so emaciated as, under the extraordinary circumstances alleged, might be expected. ... The child's body is very thin as compared with her limbs. ... There is not much substance in her flesh, however; it is soft and flabby ... [Her feet were] almost ice-cold. ... As regards the child's breathing, it is so feeble that it is almost impossible to detect it; you cannot feel it by holding the cheek to her mouth, and the only faintest flutter is felt when the hand is laid over the region of the heart. By March 1873, Ellen was believed to be suffering from starvation. At first, she had largely subsisted on port, tea and milk, given three times per day. After about 15 months—while her mother was attempting to administer arrowroot—Ellen's jaw locked closed. Subsequently, according to Hayman, she was fed "wine, gruel and other things" using the "spout of a toy teapot inserted between two broken teeth". The Daily Telegraph journalist expanded on Ellen's feeding: "The feeding implements stand on a little table by the side of the stump bedstead, and, at first sight, give you the idea that they are toys placed there to attract her attention should she, by a merciful termination of her trance, presently awake to life. The toys in question are two tiny 'teapots', each not much larger than a full-sized walnut and holding four small teaspoonfuls. One of these is filled with port wine, and the other with milk ... this quantity of liquid nourishment ... cannot weigh more than half an ounce ..." At this time, it was considered "manifestly out of the question to think of moving her". How the family dealt with Ellen's passing of urine and faeces is unclear, but in 1880, Hayman said that Ann Frewen told him that no bowel movements had occurred for five years, and that approximately every four days "a somewhat large amount would pass from the bladder".

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