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Ms. Ehmer, known as Käthe, was a German woman born severely disabled in 1895. At six years of age, she was sent to a mental institution where she would live until she died at the age of 26.

“Käthe was among the patients with the most severe mental disabilities who have ever lived in our institution. From birth on, she was seriously retarded. She had never learned to speak a single word.



She stared for hours on a particular spot, then she fidgeted for hours without a break. She gorged her food, fouled herself day and night, uttered an animal-like sound, and slept. In all the time she lived with us, we have never seen that she had taken notice of her environment even for a second,” recounted Dr.

Friedrich Happich, who ran the institution. Käthe suffered from several episodes of meningitis, which were thought to have “destroyed much of the brain tissue required for intelligent reasoning.” She also had tuberculosis, which led to the amputation of her leg and was the eventual cause of her death.

She had never spoken a single word. But, as she lay dying, something unexpected happened. She began singing to herself.

She sang—clearly and in perfect German—a funeral hymn. She sang to herself for a full half hour until she passed away. “One day I was called by one of our physicians, who is respected both as a scientist and a psychiatrist.

He said: ‘Come immediately to Käthe, she is dying!’ “When we entered the room together, we did not believe our eyes and ea.

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