Jellico Smallpox Quarantine Leads to Violence, 1898

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

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[February 22, 1898] -

The small-pox situation in the mountain towns is growing intense, although but few new cases are reported and those at Middlesboro and Jellico.  All the towns in Knox, Whitley and Laurel have quarantined each other and the world generally and will permit no person without a doctor's certificate to enter them either by private or public conveyance.  The trains are watched for people getting off and at London Conductor J. W. Rose, who stopped at the fair grounds and let some passengers off, had a writ issued against him, but as he was headed this way it was not served.  No steps have been taken by our authorities with reference to vaccination.  They are probably waiting for the horse to be stolen before locking the stable door. [1]

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[February 24, 1898] -

Mrs. Ben W. Robinson, of Halsey, Ky., was here for a few hours Tuesday, between trains, coming from Hopkinsville to bring Master Marvin Evans home.  The left Halsey with the smallpox scare raging around Jellico, through which place they had to come, and where they found difficulty in getting through.  Miss Elizabeth Hopper is still at Halsey, but will not remain if the disease continues to spread.  A letter from Mr. Robinson dated February 21, says the situation is getting serious with numerous cases at Jellico, Proctor mines and other points.  When his letter was written vaccination had not been made compulsory but nearly everybody at Halsey and taken that precaution. [2] 

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[February 25, 1898] -

Smallpox is still in Middlesboro, Jellico and other points.  All stations in Whitley county are quarantined.  One death at Middlesboro and a few new cases.  It is reported that telegraph operator, Brownlie, was brought from Middlesboro to East Bernstadt and was taken home and doors locked.  It is supposed he has the disease. [3]

Former Deputy Sheriff Shoots Man in Head, Man Survives, 1908

Previously:

Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles

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[April 27, 1908] -

FATAL SHOOTING IN ROCKCASTLE.

Former Deputy Sheriff David Clark shot Elza Langford four times at Mt. Vernon, twice in the head, once in the shoulder and once in the arm.  The participants had been enemies for some time.  A few months since they met at Orlando and emptied their revolvers at each other, doing but little damage.  They met in the office of County Judge Bethurum Saturday when hostilities were again opened.  It is not known who fired the first shot.  Clark surrendered.  Langford was a bad citizen and had given the officers and good people of Rockcastle much trouble. [1]

Pulaski County v. City of Somerset, Pulaski, 1907

PULASKI COUNTY v. CITY OF SOMERSET

COURT OF APPEALS OF KENTUCKY

98 S.W. 1022; 1907 Ky. LEXIS 387; 30 Ky. L. Rptr. 387

January 11, 1907, Decided

PRIOR HISTORY:  [**1] 

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pulaski County. "Not to be officially reported." Petition by Pulaski county against the city of Somerset for the recovery of certain money paid the city by mistake. From a judgment, dismissing plaintiff's petition and defendant's counterclaim, both parties appeal.

DISPOSITION: Affirmed on both appeal and cross-appeal.

COUNSEL: T. Z. Morrow, for appellant.

O. H. Waddle & Son, for appellee.

JUDGES: NUNN, J.

OPINION BY: NUNN

OPINION

 [*1022]  NUNN, J. - In the year 1900 an epidemic of smallpox existed in the county of Pulaski, within and without the city of Somerset, which was a city of the fourth class. Both the county and city had a board of health appointed as required by statute. The fiscal court of the county, under direction of the county board of health, had erected a pesthouse outside of the city limits, in which it intended to treat and care for those afflicted with the disease. The state board of health, by its chairman, condemned this house as unfit for such purpose. There arose a conflict of opinion between those residing in the city and those living without as to whether the county or city should bear the expense of treating and guarding the persons afflicted. Some time during that year there was a meeting of the  [**2] members of the fiscal court of the county and the members of the city council, together with the members of both boards of health. At the meeting it seems that there was an agreement between all parties that the county and city, through their proper boards, should jointly provide means and care for all persons afflicted with contagious diseases, and to provide guards so as to prevent the spread of the disease; and the county court passed a resolution, which was spread upon the order book of the county, in which it was provided that they would make an appropriation to cover or pay for one-half of the reasonable, necessary, and legal expense in securing pesthouses or hospitals, furnishing the same with necessary furniture, beds and bedding, fuel and lights, food and clothing, and medical attention for such of the inmates as were destitute, and guards for same.

By the combined efforts of the boards of health, aided by the fiscal court, and the city council, the epidemic referred to was stamped out of both the city and county; and in the month of March, 1901, the fiscal court of Pulaski county made an order allowing the city of Somerset $ 949.50, which was stated in the order to be one-half  [**3] of the reasonable, legal, and necessary expense incurred by reason of the existence of smallpox in the city and county, and this sum was paid to the city under this order. Some time after this, it appears that the city concluded that the county was responsible for the whole of the expense so incurred, and instituted an action against the county for the whole of the claim, which it claimed to be $ 3,300, crediting it with the $ 949.50, which it had received under the order referred to, and asked judgment for the balance of the claim. It appears that this action was dismissed, but for what reason is not shown in this record. After that it appears that the county concluded that the city was responsible for the whole of the expense so incurred, and filed the petition in this case; setting forth, in substance, the  [*1023]  facts as related and claiming that the city was responsible for the whole expense; and that it had paid to the city the $ 949.50 by mistake, and sought to recover it. The city answered and claimed that the county was responsible for the whole and, if not responsible for the whole, it was responsible for at least one-half of the $ 3,300, under the agreement above recited; and that  [**4] the county still owed it $ 700.50, its one-half of the expense incurred, and asked a judgment over against the county for that sum. The county controverted this. Upon the trial of the case in the lower court, and after the appellant introduced its evidence, the court, on motion of the appellee, dismissed the petition, and also appellee's counterclaim, and both parties have appealed.

Under the statute with reference to the question involved, as construed by this court in the case of Blair v. City, 67 S. W. 16, 23 Ky. Law Rep. 2253, and the case of Bell County v. Blair, 50 S. W. 1104, 21 Ky. Law Rep. 121, there is no doubt that both the city and county are responsible for the expense; the city for that incurred in treating those so afflicted within the city limits; and the county for that in treating those so afflicted without the city. The proof in the case shows that there were cases of smallpox both within and without the city, possibly more cases within the city than without. There is no allegation in the plaintiff's petition, nor any proof showing that the $ 949.50, paid by the county, was any greater sum than it would have cost the county to have treated the cases within the county  [**5] and without the city; but the evidence tends to show that there was a saving of expenses to both the county and city by the joint efforts of both in the suppression of the disease.

The appellee, under its proof, did not make out a case against the city, and the court properly dismissed its petition. The city complains because the court refused to allow it a judgment against the appellant for $ 700; even conceding that the county was responsible, under its agreement, for one-half of all the expense incurred in stamping out the disease, the appellee did not show, by proof, that the $ 949.50, paid by the county, was less than one-half of the actual and reasonable expense incurred. The county did not agree to pay one-half of any claim that the city might present. The proof shows that the claim presented by the city to the fiscal court only amounted to about $ 2,400; and a member of the fiscal court testified that the county had paid some of the expense incurred outside of the city; and that many items of the claim, as presented, were unjust and unreasonable; and that the fiscal court examined each item of the claim presented, and the court allowed one-half of the reasonable and necessary  [**6] expense. There was no contradiction of this proof introduced; and therefore the court properly dismissed the counterclaim of appellee.

For these reasons the judgment of the lower court is affirmed on both the appeal and cross-appeal.

Dentist Used Fear of Tuberculosis to Attract Customers, 1910

I've had a request for more science and/or pseudo-science type articles, so here we go. This is a dentist's advertisement from the Tacoma Times of Tacoma, Washington on January 24, 1910:

TUBERCULOSIS

THE WHITE PLAGUE 

The war is on.  Are you in the fight? 

The scientists tell us that fresh air, pure food and rest are the most essential factors in combating this dread disease.  There can be no doubt but that the scientists are right, but there is something else that must be taken into consideration first.  It is a disease which affects ninety per cent of the population of the United States.  Caries, or decay of the teeth, is the disease referred to. 

The first step in digestion takes place in the mouth, and unless your teeth are in good condition the food will not be masticated properly, and no matter how pure it may be when it enters the mouth it will soon be contaminated; therefore, in order to get pure food into the stomach you must have a clean mouth.  Pure air! Would air be pure after passing through a sewer?  Hardly.  Look at your teeth.  Smell your own breath.  Some people would have to take air through a tube if they expected to get it into the lungs pure.

We must have rest.  Did you ever have an aching molar or an abscessed bicuspid?  Could you rest?  Not very long at a time.  If we are going to fight the white plague successfully we must also fight this most prevalent of diseases, decay of the teeth.  Children should be taken to the dentist as soon as the first teeth begin to erupt.  It is criminal negligence on the part of the parents to allow the baby teeth to decay.  On their proper care and attention depends the future health and happiness of the child. 

Yours for health and happiness, 

HUTCHINSON

Dentist

Scientist Says Only Nose Intended for Breathing, 1861

From the Baltimore Sun on July 20, 1861:

"Shut Your Mouth."

This is the advice of Mr. George Catlin, who is so thoroughly convinced that most of the ills of our humanity are caused by open mouths, that he has written an amusing little volume to prove his case and urge his point upon the men and women of America.

"If I were to endeavor to bequeath to posterity the most important motto which human language can convey," (says Mr. Catlin,) "it should be in three words--Shut--your--Mouth."

Mr. Catlin addresses himself chiefly to mothers.  He urges them to keep tightly closed not only their own mouths, but their children's, of both sexes and all ages.  he assures them that out of the mouth, or through it--when it is open--proceeds consumption, dyspepsia, rotten teeth, a crooked spine, ill temper, snoring; and if there be any other diseases which men fear, they too assail man's vital parts by way of the mouth.

If you want to catch a contagious disease, sleep with your moth open.  If you want to have disagreeable dreams, sleep with your mouth open.  If you want to spoil your teeth, your good looks and your temper, sleep with your mouth open.

"Bronchitis, quinsey, croup, asthma and other diseases of the respiratory organs, as well as dyspepsia, gout of the stomach, rickets, diarrhea, diseases of the liver, the heart, the spine and the whole of the nervous system, from the brain to the toes, may chiefly be attributed to this deadly and unnatural habit" of sleeping with the mouth agape, like an oyster in his last agonies.  "When a man lies down at night to rest from the fatigues of the day, and yields his system and all his energies to the repose of sleep, and his volition and all his powers of resistance are giving way to its quieting influence, if he gradually opens his mouth to its widest strain, he lets the enemy in that chills his lungs, that racks his brain, that paralyses his stomach, that gives him the nightmare, brings imps and fairies that dance before him during the night; and during the following day, headache, toothache, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and the gout."

Mr. Catlin believes that the nose was intended to be breathed through. He believes air should reach the lungs only through the nose, and never through the mouth; and to prove the correctness of his theory he cites a number of curious facts and experiences of his own.

He remarks that in times when cholera or yellow fever are prevalent, persons who habitually breathe through their mouth are most subject to these infections.  And here we may bring in the general voice of seamen to co[r]roborate his statement.  All experienced sailors sleep, habitually, with closely shut mouths.  One reason for this may be that roaches, which are very large and extremely abundant on board ship, are apt to crawl into an open mouth to investigate its contents--the large East Indian roach being, as is well known, an animal of highly inquisitive character.  But another and equally powerful reason is the general belief, among seamen, that the air laden with miasmatic poison is more or less purified by being inhaled through the nostrils.  They believe with Mr. Catlin, that--

"The air which enters the lungs is as different from that which enters the nostrils as distilled water is different from the water in an ordinary cistern or a frog-pond.  The arresting and purifying process of the nose, upon the atmosphere with its poisonous ingredients, passing through it, though less perceptible, is not less distinct nor less important than that of the mouth which stops cherry-stones and fish-bones from entering the stomach.

The Permanency of Typewritten Records, 1899

From the Omaha Daily Bee on July 23, 1899:

Typewritten Records.

The permanency of typewritten records is a subject of no little importance says the Albany Law Journal, and it is worthy of note that a series of experiments is being conducted in Boston with a view of establishing the relative value of the leading brands of typewriter ribbons.  Robert T. Swan, the state commissioner of public records for the state of Massachusetts, is doing some good work in this direction.  He finds that of the different colors used for typewriter ribbons, the red, green, blue and purple are not permanent, black being the only one that will stand the test to which he subjects the writing.

The legislature of Massachusetts, which recently adjourned, passed an act permitting typewritten records to be accepted as official when approved by the commissioner of public records, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey having previously taken similar action.  In other words, no such records will be accepted unless the materials used are up to the standard and the commissioner is expressly authorized by the statute referred to withdraw his approval at any time when he shall find that the articles used fall below such standard.  This is a very important matter which should be acted upon in every state, for the fading of public records so as to become illegible is something that ought to be carefully provided against, otherwise it were much better to keep in force the provision that legal records shall be written only with pen and ink.

It is possible, we think, to produce typewritten records that are quite as permanent as any produced by writing with a pen and in view of the greater legibility of the former, as well as their economy of production, it is desirable that this should be done.  While the states generally have no official corresponding to the commissioner of public records in Massachusetts, it out to be made somebody's business to supervise the matter of permanency of public records.

Calico Production in the Nineteenth Century U.S.

This article about how calico printing also comes from the San Francisco Bulletin of October 7, 1861.

Photograph of 1920-1930 Nurse's Uniform

This is a photograph of a woman named Maude Elizabeth Haas Williams, born April 8, 1907, dressed in her nurse uniform.  She met her husband, Clarence H. Williams, when he was admitted to the hospital where she worked.  They married August 3, 1935 in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Based on the dates of her life I would estimate that this nurse's uniform is circa late 1920s and/or early 1930s.

The Tragedy of the American Buffalo

Very large pile of American buffalo skulls, photo taken 1870.  Source: Wikipedia.

The word "pile" seems a hopelessly inadequate description for this image.

The American Buffalo almost went extinct in the nineteenth century due to people over-hunting them for food, clothing, and sport.  Only a few small herds managed to escape the extermination, creating a severe genetic bottleneck.  Worse, scientists have recently discovered that the genetic makeup of the majority of these herds are contaminated with cattle DNA.  (Unlike the progeny of donkeys and horses, the offspring of cattle and buffalo are generally fertile.)

The following is from the second chapter of The Overland Stage to California by Frank A. Root, published in 1901.   This chapter is actually about the Prairie ("the Great American Desert", as he refers to it), but talks in great detail about buffalo, which I have excerpted and arranged here.  Root was in Kansas Territory in the 1850s and '60s and drove overland stagecoaches during that time, and his book recounts many of his firsthand experiences.  You can view the book on google books for free if you wish to read this chapter, or the book, in its entirety.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT, HOME OF THE BUFFALO. 

The first buffaloes I ever saw were in the streets of Atchison.  It was in the early '60s, during the war; but after that I saw them on several occasions.  These were domesticated and yoked together, having been driven in by a ranchman from the Republican valley, hauling produce to the Atchison market.  They attracted considerable attention from the business men.  They seemed to travel all right, were extremely gentle, and, under the yoke, appeared to work quite as nicely as the patient ox.  Nothing particularly strange was thought about the matter at the time, when there were immense herds of buffalo roaming wild on the plains of western Kansas; but I never, after that year, saw any of the shaggy animals yoked and doing the work of oxen. 

The number of buffalo in the great West less than half a century ago was roughly estimated at from ten to twenty millions. Careful authorities put the number at fifteen millions.  They once existed in New York, a number of buffaloes having been killed in the western part of that state, near where the bustling commercial city of Buffalo is built, which will perpetuate the name of the now practically extinct American animal.  In western Pennsylvania, near the salt-licks, a number of buffaloes were found; and according to an early explorer, a few head were found in ... large numbers in Virginia.  According to early writers, they were found in the Carolinas and along the northeast coast of Georgia, the only record known of their existence on the Atlantic seaboard.  East of the Mississippi, they ranged south as far as northern Alabama and were found in places throughout Mississippi and Louisiana.  Large numbers abounded in Texas.  They were also found in the northern provinces of Mexico, New Mexico, a portion of Utah, and also in Idaho, Washington, and in the arctic circle as far north as Great Slave Lake.  ...   

A HERD OF BUFFALO ON THE PLAINS IN WESTERN KANSAS
Pg 26 of The Overland Stage to California by Frank A. Root (pub 1901)

History informs us they were found by Coronado on his march northward from Mexico as early as 1585, between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains; later they were found by Lewis and Clarke, Zebulon M. Pike, and Long, in the early part of the present century; still later by Fremont and others, who made tours of exploration through the great West.  Often they were seen by tourists and hunters in immense herds, numbering hundreds of thousands. ... 

... Daniel Boone, the famous Kentucky hunter, once found a herd of buffaloes in his state which numbered 1000 head.  That was then believed to be a big herd but it was not then known that there were herds numbering millions of buffalo grazing on the plains embraced in the region known as the "Great American Desert," lying between the Missouri and the Rockies. 

The pioneers of Kansas, particularly a number who settled on the frontier--along the upper valley of the Smoky Hill, Republican, Solomon and Saline rivers--practically owed their lives to the existence of the buffalo.  For years in the '60s a goodly portion of the meat consumed by those early settlers was cut from the carcass of the noble, shaggy animal which so long existed as monarch of the plains.  Thousands of people who at an early day went overland to Utah, Oregon and California drew their supply of meat from the buffalo.  Where this life-preserver was found, it was known that, by following their paths, nearby water would be found.  The principal article of fuel found on the frontier for cooking the meat of the buffalo was the dried excrement of the animal, known in early Kansas and Nebraska parlance as "buffalo-chips."  The buffalo was one of the noblest of all animals.  It seemed indispensable.  It furnished man with an abundance of the most wholesome meat; the hide was made into shoes and garments worn during the day, and it made a comfortable bed and supplied warm covering in or out of doors at night. 

The building of the Pacific railroad was made possible at so early a day simply because the buffalo existed.  From the mighty herds the vast army of railroad builders drew their daily supply of fresh meat, and thousands of the animals were annually slaughtered for food while pushing to completion, in the '60s, the great transcontinental line.  For a few years in the '70s the railways did an enormous business carrying East train loads of hides and buffalo bones, these for a number of years being the principal articles of commerce gathered from the plains.  For years the great West resembled a charnel-house. Losing their crops, the pioneer settlers gathered up the bleached bones that covered the land, and they were shipped to the carbon works in the East, for the sale of which enough was realized to enable them to pull through another season. ... 

... The last herd of buffalo I ever saw in the wild, native state was in the fall of 1870.  It was along the Kansas Pacific railroad, near the head waters of the Smoky Hill river.  The railroad had just been built, and the animals seemed terribly frightened at the cars.  In their mad race westward along the railroad, they actually kept up with the passenger-train, which was moving along from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour.  The race became exciting, and all the passengers--many of whom had never before seen a buffalo--held their breath in suspense.  It was noticed that the animals never changed their course, but kept steadily coming nearer the train, apparently determined to cross the track at the curve a short distance beyond.  Not caring for a collision which might possibly derail the train, the engineer gave up the race and whistled "down brakes," stopping within a few rods of the animals to let them cross.  A parting salute was given by some of the passengers, who emptied the chambers of their six-shooters among the beasts, but which they did not appear to mind any more than a blast from a toy pop-gun.  While these animals used to cover the prairies and plains of western Kansas and Nebraska in countless millions, hardly one of them is now left to remind us of the once noble and powerful herds originally known in the great West as "crooked-back oxen." 

The best meat we used to get on the frontier in the early days was buffalo.  The markets at Atchison, Leavenworth, Topeka and a number of other Kansas towns, as early as 1857 and for some years following, were often supplied with buffalo meat, brought in from central Kansas.  No beef, it was said, could excel, even if it could equal, that of the buffalo; especially the hump upon the shoulders, which was invariably spoken of as a choice morsel."  Rich, juicy buffalo steaks and superb roasts were as common in the '60s on the plains as were other fresh meats in the best of well-regulated city markets. ... 

... What a shame, what an outrage on civilization! that the buffalo ... was so ruthlessly slaughtered.  Millions of the shaggy beasts were indiscriminately shot down by the white man in the '60s and '70s apparently just for the "fun of the thing." 

I remember well in the early '60s, while residing at Atchison, when long ox trains, loaded exclusively with buffalo hides, frequently were brought in from the plains by freighters.  The wagons were unloaded on the levee and the skins shipped on board steamboats down the Missouri river for St. Louis and Cincinnati.  Later, I saw hundreds of wagon-loads of these skins on the plains, in 1863-'65, when riding on the overland stage along the Platte and Little Blue rivers.  Several years afterward such trains were frequent sights at various towns on the Missouri.  Most of the wagon trains bearing the cargoes of untanned robes from the "Great American Desert" were from the Platte valley; some bound for Omaha, some for Nebraska City, some for St. Joseph, and most of the balance for Atchison and Leavenworth.  Hundreds of wagon-loads of the skins from the plains went into Kansas City from the "Old Santa Fe Trail." ... 

... According to a writer in Harper's Magazine a few years ago, Fort Benton--a military post about 2500 miles up the Missouri from St. Louis--in 1876 along sent 80,000 buffalo hides to market.  Toward the close of their career on the plains the animals had divided into two great herds--the southern and northern.  The great southern herd, however, was the first to go, being practically extinct at the close of 1872.  A few straggling herds only, after that date, were to be found.  The early '80s was about the last seen of the wild buffalo of the plains, which a quarter of a century or more before was so numerous between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains.  The greatest slaughter of the beasts was in 1872-'74, when, it was estimated, the number slain ran up into the millions. 

Hundreds of the best shots from all over this country and Europe, in the early '70s, were on hand to take a farewell hung before the shaggy bison became extinct.  Scores of noted Nimrods came from England, Scotland, Russia, and Germany--in fact, from almost every part of Europe.  The Grand Duke Alexis, youngest son of Emperor Alexander, of Russia, with quite a numerous retinue, came with a party from St. Petersburg, and went on a tour through "Buffalo Land" in the winter of 1871-'72. ...  

... During the immense overland traffic in the early '60s, portions of the plains were fairly white with bones of the buffalo.  The animals had first been killed by the Indians for their food and robes, and later, millions of the shaggy beasts had been indiscriminately slaughtered by the white man just for sport, their carcasses left a prey for the wolves, and their bones to bleach by the wayside.  In the '50s and '60's their bones were scattered promiscuously in center localities for hundreds of miles in central and western Kansas, and between Fort Kearney and Julesburg along the Platte, as far back from the river as the eye could reach.  

No one seeing the apparently endless mass of bones even dreamed that any use would ever be made of them; but after the completion of the Union Pacific railway and its branches across the "Great American Desert," and, later, the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line into the Southwest, an immense new industry was early inaugurated in Kansas.  Kansas was the natural home of the buffalo, and, during the '70s, hundreds of merchants in the western part of the state had a regular trade established and did a lively business buying and shipping buffalo bones to Eastern markets.

Trend Alert: Teeth Disappearing, 1897

This fine example of absurd, alarmist journalism comes from The Princeton Union of Princeton, Minnesota on September 9, 1897:

ARE TEETH DISAPPEARING?

A Terrible Callamity Promised for the Coming Generations.

What is to be done about it, or will the future race be consent to do without teeth? asks the Boston Herald.  According to an experienced dentist, education is playing sad havoc with the teeth of the modern generation.  The change in them has been apparently rapid, more so than in other physical deteriorations, and, dentistry having become a science, the cause is sought with hopes to stay the effect.  Formerly, says the dentist, decayed teeth were attributed to a fondness for sweets, but this idea is a mistake.  Sugar is nourishing, and taken with a wholesome diet and proper care of the teeth it doesn't harm them.  The truth is that the ancient sturdy square jaw of the Anglo-Saxon race is changing through over-much study and over-reduction to a V shape, which presses the molars one upon the other and does not give them room to grow, and will in time prevent them cutting at all.  The horse lost his five toes through disease; the man is about to lose his "wisdom" teeth through a like process.  The "wisdomers" are already missing in many jaws.  This singular to relate, makes the "educated jaw."  English women are not averse to this V-shaped angle of chin.  They are distinguished for the length and breadth of the teeth, and would gladly see their ivories diminish under the new facial form.  Girton and Newnham, Radcliffe and Vassar are responsible for much of this "educated" jaw.  The young men are not sorry to have less teeth to be filled, and as personal vanity plays little part in their physical culture they would as soon be toothless as not.  But suppose more study, more "higher education" aids this process of evolution and in the course of time the grandchildren of the students of today have jaws like chipmunks and never, no never, cut any teeth, what then?  Will the dentists' occupation be gone; or will they, as a writer suggests, then manufacture complete artificial sets for people from the day of their birth onward?

Tesla Predicted Television and Video Chat

This one didn't quite fit in with the topic of my last Nikola Tesla post where I shared clips of his more outlandish claims, but I liked this one too much to not share it as well.

From The Tacoma Times of Tacoma, Washington on October 14, 1915:

The Tacoma Times, Oct 14, 1915

...Tesla, "but believe me when I say it is only the beginning.

"Very soon it will be possible for us to see each other at distances of thousands of miles; we shall be enabled to hear an opera, sermon or scientific lecture, and be visually present in all kinds of meeting and transactions without regard to where we ourselves happen to be at that time.

"This will become a daily business experience, not only to transmit with unerring precision a signature to an important document, but enable the recipient in a distant country to see it affixed by the sender.

Wireless Telegraphy and the RMS Titanic

The RMS Titanic, as we all know, was seen as the foremost in ship-building technology when it launched in April of 1912.  Although much attention in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster focused on the failures of technology, The Day Book of Chicago, Illinois on April 17, 1912, two days after the Titanic sank, illustrates how another technological innovation of the day allowed for there to be any survivors at all.

Story in Picture of How Wireless Waked The Midnight Sea
Californian, Virginian, Prinz Frederick Wilhelm, Olympic
Prinz Adelbert, Baltic, Carpathia, Mauretania, Cincinati, Parisian

The Day Book, Chicago, IL - Apr 17, 1912

Although the steamer Titanic sank before help arrived, one of the most remarkable features of the disaster was how the great liner's dying call for help by wireless telegraphy awakened the midnight sea.  "S. O. S." (Send out Succor) flashed out over the silent wastes shortly before 11 o'clock.  Every few minutes the air waves carried "S. O. S." until 12: 17, when it stopped.  But in that hour and a half the cry for help was picked up by a dozen ships--ships that turned from their courses and sped under forced draught to the spot in the old ocean where grim tragedy was at work.  The picture illustrates how the sea responded.

Some Lesser Known Innovations of Nikola Tesla

Kansas City Journal
Jan 5, 1898

Here are some descriptions of lesser known innovations, or claims of innovations, of Nikola Tesla's, as reported in newspaper articles during his lifetime.   These are excerpts from multiple articles in multiple newspapers.  To read the full articles, you can do so for free on the Library of Congress website.

The photo and caption to the left comes from The Kansas City Journal of Kansas City, Missouri, on January  5, 1898.


From The Princeton Union of Princeton, Minnesota, March 9, 1893:

(Sounds safe to me!)*
from The Princeton Union, Mar 9, 1893

Tesla is as yet only 36, and his great-discovery of a rapid alternating current was made some years ago.  One of the results of it is that an electric glow like daylight may be produced between the opposite walls of a room by simply having metallic wall paper and connecting it with the central generating plant.

Also From The Princeton Union of Princeton, Minnesota, March 9, 1893:

The Princeton Union, Mar 9, 1893

Tesla has perfected apparatus which will produce an alternating current of 1,000,000 alternations per second, such rapid waves, in fact, that they cause no effect on the human body.  He has produced a flame which lights without making heat or combustion, but which can be changed so as to produce both when they are wanted for warming a house or for cooking.  Thus the light will not burn up the oxygen of a room.  His machine will make ozone, and by another invention he has made he declares himself able to electrically disinfect all creation.  If he can give the world ozone in such quantity, then nobody need ever die of consumption or suffer for want of fresh air.  He has made an electrical current flow through vulcanite [rubber], hitherto regarded as the insulator nearest perfect of any known.  He says he has found five different kinds of electrical discharge, from an infinitesimally thin thread to a huge stream of light.  These are some of the claims of electrical wizard No. 2.

From The San Francisco Call, San Francisco, CA, November 13, 1898 (full page article with several wonderful illustrations).  The article goes on to describe this as "Tesla's system of electrical power transmission through natural media."

The San Francisco Call, Nov 13, 1898

Tesla's latest electrical wonder is out.  It is out because he has just received patents on it in this and other countries.

What Tesla proposes to do now is to transmit almost any amount of power almost any distance without wires, and without loss.  Although moving ships at sea may use the system for propulsion it is mainly intended for use on land.

To illustrate the anticipated results in the most concrete form it is proposed, for instance, that water power shall generate a great quantity of electricity on the lower courses of streams coming from the Sierras; that this electricity shall be conducted to a balloon arrangement floating a mile or two above the earth; that there shall be in San Francisco a similar balloon high above the city and that all the electrical energy conducted to the first balloon shall pass without loss and without wires to the balloon over the city, from which it shall descend to turn wheels and light lamps, etc.

A secondary result would seem to be that ships minus boilers and minus coal shall plow their way from the Golden Gate to Puget Sound, their churning propellers being driven by motors which draw their energy through the air from stations arranged every hundred miles or so along the shore.

The Same Force Made to Run Factories, Street Cars
and Electric Lights in a City Miles Away
The San Francisco Call, Nov 13, 1898

From The Washington Herald, Washington, D.C., December 5, 1915:

The Washington Herald, Dec 5, 1915

Mr. Tesla says his discovery has a direct and vital bearing on the problems now foremost in the public mind.  Wireless telephony will be brought to a perfection hitherto undreamed of through the application of this discovery, Tesla claims.  The inventor says that through his discovery electrical effects of unlimited intensity and power can be produced, so that not only energy can be transmitted for all practical purposes to any terrestrial distance, but even effects of cosmic magnitude may be created.

"We will deprive the ocean of its terrors by illuminating the sky, thus avoiding collision at sea and other disasters caused by darkness," Tesla claims.  "We will draw unlimited quantities of water from the ocean and irrigate the deserts and other arid regions. In this way we will fertilize the soil and derive any amount of power from the sun.  I also believe that ultimately all battles, if they should come, will be waged by electrical waves instead of explosives.


From The Evening Bulletin of Maysville, Kentucky, in 1898:

The Evening Bulletin, 1898

He has now discovered that it is just as easy to blow up an enemy's vessel by means of the ocsillator as it is to send a message by telephone from one end of the city to the other.  The question of distance between the enemy's ship and the oscillator does not enter into consideration at all.  The same force that can convey a message that distance will be able, Mr. Tesla thinks, to blow up the biggest battleship that has ever been afloat at an equal distance.





*I'm just kidding. Please don't try this. Obviously.

Article Describing Midwifery In New York, 1915

Because Economic Conditions Demand Her, the Midwife, a Relic of Hygienically Dark Ages, is Being Developed Into a Scientific, Ministering Angel.

New York Times, Thursday, February, 18, 1915

By Jeannette Young Norton

The midwife is here to stay.  Tradition and economic condition have made her a necessity, and the New York Health Department has been forced to recognize her.  Ignorant, dirty, careless, superstition, she may have been in the past, but since the Bureau of Child Hygiene has taken charge of her training, the midwife has become careful, clean and efficient, and midwifery is ranked as a legal and honorable profession.

It was just four years ago that an attempt to better the midwife was initiated with the establishing of the Bellevue Hospital School for Midwives.  Dr. George O'Hanlon, general medican superintendent of Bellevue an Allied Hospitals, was placed in charge.  It has been through Dr. O'Hanlon that many good ideas have been taken from the best schools of the kind in Europe and put into practice here.  He is in sympathy with the profession of midwifery, and believes that the midwife fills a place in the households where she is desired that no physician or nurse could occupy.  And so the midwife is here to stay.

As part of the work of the Child Hygiene Bureau, the midwife situation had to be met and dealt with by Dr. S. Josephine Baker, the department's physician."

Dr. Baker then went on to explain why the midwife was a necessity, and why the physician and the trained nurse could never take her place.

Obituary of Alienist Allan McLane Hamilton

From the Palestine Daily Herald, Saturday, March 5, 1910.

Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton.

Famous Alienist Who Has Figured In Many Conspicuous Cases.

Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton, one of the country's most famous alienists, who figured in the Guiteau, Thaw, and other trials, is a grandson of Alexander Hamilton.  He is a resident of  New York.

----

From the New York Tribune, December 20, 1919.

Famous Alienist Dies

Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton, famous insanity expert and author of "Recollections of an Alienist" (George H. Doran Company), died on November 24 in his seventy-second year.  Dr. Hamilton was the grandson of Alexander Hamilton.  Standing at the head of his own profession, he had come into close contact with many prominent men both here and abroad, and had been personally associated, either as expert or witness or adviser, with many of the famous insanity trials of recent years.

In "Recollections of an Alienist" Dr. Hamilton relates his experiences through a long life of interest, not lacking in excitement, in connection with his study of the diseases of the mind.  His experiences were not by any means confined to the courtroom and were sometimes attended with great danger, but were always replete with interest.

---

His memoir, "Recollections of an Alienist" is available for free on google books, here.

Burial of Leon Czolgosz, Quicklime and Sulphuric Acid

After Czolgosz's execution, government officials wanted to destroy his corpse in order to negate relic hunters. Those tasked with destroying Czolgosz's body first used quicklime to hasten deterioration, but later decided to pour sulphuric acid into his grave to completely destroy the corpse. However, there was a small controversy over the effectiveness of this method, as illustrated from the following clipping from the Richmond Dispatch of Richmond, VA, printed November 2, 1901.

Warden Mead Made A Mistake

Czolgosz's Body May Be In Plaster Cast

New York Herald. It is possible that if the body of Leon Czolgosz were exhumed today it would be found well preserved in a plaster of paris cast instead of having been dissolved and disintegrated by the action of the quicklime and vitriol with which it was covered when interred in the prison burial lot at Auburn on Tuesday afternoon.  It had been determined by Warden Mead and Superintendent Cornelius V. Collins to bury the body in a bed of quicklime, so that no trace of the assassin should remain as a possible incentive to relic hunters.

To make certain Warden Mead a few days before Czolgosz was executed placed a piece of raw beef in a jar containing an equal amount of quicklime, but when the Warden opened the jar he was surprised to find the meat practically in the same condition.

Warden Mead and Superintendent Collins then decided to add to the mass of quicklime over Czolgosz body a quantity of vitriol.

This was done. When the body was interred on Tuesday afternoon a layer of quicklime had already been placed in the grave. On this the coffin, the lid of which had been removed, was laid, and the body was then covered with two barrels of quicklime.

Over this a carboy of vitriol, or sulphuric acid was poured, two more barrels of quicklime was thrown in, and over all the earth was shovelled until the grave was filled.

It was anticipated that as a result of the action of the sulphuric acid and the quicklime the body would be dissolved within twelve hours, but it is improbable that this has been the case.

When quicklime and sulphuric acid are combined, the chemical result is plaster of paris and water.  This is the chemical formula:

Ca O plus H2 SO4 equals Ca SO4 plus H2O.  Ca O is the quicklime, H2 SO4 the sulphuric acid, Ca SO4 the plaster of paris resulting from the chemical combination, and H2O the water left over, which, in the course of time, would evaporate.

"It is entirely possible that Czolgosz's body is enclosed in a plaster of paris cast, said Professor Charles F. Chandler, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and of the University of New York, last night.

"Plaster of Paris would result from the combination of the sulphuric acid and quicklime, but to have the effect of each of them as a solvent entirely neutralized it would be necessary that they should have been combined in exactly the right proportions.

"There is undoubtedly a large amount of plaster of paris surrounding Czolgosz's body if he was buried in the manner described by the newspapers, but there was undoubtedly either too much sulphuric acid or too much quicklime, probably the latter, to make a perfect chemical combination of the entire mass.  There would be enough of either the quicklime or sulphuric acid left over to dissolve the body in the course of time.

"In order to make a plaster of paris cast it would be necessary that there should be ninety-eight parts of the acid to fifty-six parts of the lime--that is, if the acid were absolutely pure.  The vitriol of commerce, however, contains about six and one-half parts of water to ninety-three and one-half parts of pure acid.

"A carboy, as I remember, contains about 150 pounds, which would not be sufficient to entirely neutralize the quantity of quicklime with which the body was covered.  Quicklime would not, under any circumstances dissolve the body in twenty-four hours, but there is undoubtedly enough of it left to do the desired work int he course of time."

This letter, bearing on the matter, was received by the Herald yesterday:

To the Editor of the Herald:
I have just been reading about the cremation of the assassin Czolgosz, and the way Warden Mead expects to destroy the body.  If your account is correct Warden Mead evidently did not know that his modus operandi will cause the body to be kept forever preserved in a matrix of sulphate of lime or plaster of paris, and that he might as well have placed the body in alcohol.

Of course, the action of the oil of vitriol on the lime will produce intense heat, but probably the body will be preserved by that very fact, as the vapor produced around the body will act as a protective layer, or cushion, between it and the surrounding quick-setting plaster of paris.

All this is very elementary, and a tyro* in chemistry could have pointed that out to Warden Mead.  His purpose would have surely been attained with the oil of vitriol alone, or, better, with a strong soda lye (a solution of caustic soda or potash), the latter having been used by a certain criminal in Chicago to effectively destroy the body of his wife.

Newark, N.J., October 30, 1901
CHEMIST

* A tyro is a beginner/novice