Ever wonder what a ichthyosaurus fossil specimen found in 1813,
and a pterosaur (
flying reptile)
fossil specimen found in 1828
have in common with Breast Cancer???
"who saw what others failed to see"-C.Tickell, then
you
were right. Mary Anning was
born in 1799 and suffered from breast cancer in 1845 and then died of
breast
cancer two years later in 1847.
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I
f you guessed
the unsung hero and collecting force of
Lyme
Regis, the Dorset woman,
Mary
Anning,then you were right.
*image credit: A
British site on Mary Anning:http://www.rowfant.demon.co.uk/anningpic.gif
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Mary
as a child was struck unconscious by lighting, while
sitting
under an elm tree, with her care giver and two others who died in that
same
stroke of lighting; afterwards Mary, the sole survivor of the incident,
was revived in warm water.
Wouldn't
you drink too?
"In her last years she
was accused
of drinking, though the truth is much sadder. She had cancer of the
breast.
No doubt, like so many Victorian women, she took laudamum to ease
the
pain."quote from John Fowles, 1995, from page 4 of 'Mary
Anning of Lyme Regis', a book  by
Crispin Tickell, forward by John Fowles.
*image credit: A
Japanese site on Mary Anning:
http://www.kidexplorer.co.kr/explorer/jurassicexplorer/image/anning.gif
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MARY ANNING(1799-1847)-
"Collected and
sold fossils from the cliffs of Lyme Regis along the shores of southern
Great Britain", "Discovered one of the first ichthyosaur fossils
and the very first plesiosaur fossil", "Despite her major contributions
to museums, her special skills and knowledge were largely forgotten by
the
scientific community" from:
http://virtual.yosemite.cc.ca.us/torokm/documents/
History%20of%20Evolutionary%20Thought.htm
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