Crippled By Fall on Ice

1919

Fractured Bone Can Never Heal, Say Physicians.

DENVER, Colorado — Joe H. Ruffner, widely known mining man, secretary of the Sons of Colorado, will be crippled for life as a result of falling off a patch of ice, according to the report of a physician who made an X-ray examination.

Ruffner is 49 years old. The fall resulted in a fracture of the femur bone of the hip, of such character that it can never heal, according to the examining surgeon.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 12.

Makes Nose From Soup Bone

1915

Girl's Facial Deformity Corrected by Modern Surgery

PHILADELPHIA, Pa., Dec. 16. — An artificial nose which compares favorably with the natural variety, has been made from a soup bone by the surgeons of the Samaritan Hospital.

A few years ago a girl baby was born without a nose and her parents took her out but little in public owing to the attention that the deformity attracted. Surgeons at the hospital decided that the girl could have a nose like other persons.

Dr. W. W. Babcock carved a nose along Greek lines from a beef soup bone. An incision was made in the nasal flesh and the bone securely fastened in position. Then the flesh was stretched so it covered the bone, nostrils were punched in the flesh, and the child is now able to breathe freely thru the artificial member.



Make Nose Out of Man's Rib

Iowan's Nasal Organ Is Restored by an Unique Operation

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, Dec. 16. — Chester Davenport, son of former Sheriff W. C. Davenport of Sioux City, has had a new nose made from a piece of his ninth rib, and the dual operation, which has just been performed, promises to be successful. A three inch section of his rib was removed and used to form a new nasal arch, taking the place of the nose bone that was removed three years ago.

Davenport lost the original nasal bone as a result of injuries suffered in a football game. His nose was broken and an abscess formed, necessitating the removal of the whole nasal bone.

Boys Play Skittles With Skulls

1905

Numerous bones and skulls hare been recently dug up near the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, and boys of the locality are playing skittles with them.

This will soon be stopped, as the human debris is to be carefully collected by the workmen who are excavating in the district.

The skulls and bones come from the old graveyard of the Abbey of St. Martin-des-Champs, which existed where the Commercial Conservatoire now stands. There was also another cemetery, that of St. Nicolas, in the same district, and it was built over in the eighteenth century. — Paris correspondence, London Telegraph.


Japanese Live By Rule

Their Diet and Habits Regulated Strictly Through a Thousand Years

An army officer, discussing recently with friends the surprising immunity from sickness of the Japanese troops as manifested in the present war, said that, while the first cause was doubtless the diet prescribed, the real reason was to be found in the way the dietary is adhered to.

The Anglo-Saxon fighting man might be told what to eat and what to eschew, but centuries of personal liberty in eating and drinking and the ordering of his daily regimen to suit himself had given him a certain independence. With the gallant little yellow man, however, the adherence to the instructions they receive on such matters was slave-like.

Their minutest personal actions had been regulated through a thousand years of feudal strife and dependence, which, taken with their peculiar temperament, had made them submissive to a degree unknown among the freer races, or races which, if not freer, had freer institutions, in which minute details of life were not so closely regulated.

Dead A Million Years

1895

Priceless Bones From the Historic Waters of Bitter Creek

Men who once become interested in queer bugs and animals with which nature has peopled every part of the earth become so devoted to study of animal and plant life and so deeply interested in the bones of the man, woman or monkeys that lived and loved and died so many hundred thousand years ago that no personal sacrifice is too great for them to make in pursuit of their calling.

Prof. J. S. Worthman has just returned from the mountains of southern Wyoming, bringing with him the priceless treasure. It is the skeleton of a supposed human being dead some millions of years more or less, and may lead to the establishment of the missing link. The bones were found in the historic waters of Bitter Creek from which the fiery tempered cowboy is supposed to rise before spilling the blood of the towns-people in general. "The skeleton," says Prof. Worthman, "of a human body estimated to be a million and a half years old has interested scientists keenly. The Professor says the priceless skeleton was found near the head of Bitter Creek in Southern Wyoming, about ten miles from the Colorado line. The region was once the bed of a fresh water lake. Sediment gradually accumulated through unknown centuries until it formed a deposit two thousand to four thousand feet thick. The sage inhabitant whose remains are now disclosed to the eye of man was apparently drowned in the lake. His body was preserved as in an Egyptian mummy cave. By and by the water receded, new forces began to operate, mountain streams rippled across the dry lake bottoms, great chasms were out through the soft earth and the skeleton was exposed on the surface of a vast cliff.

The bones were broken in pieces and portions fell to the base of the cliff. Professor Worthman came along in the nick of time. His practiced eye detected the presence of an unusual specimen, but who can describe his joy as he stopped and picked up the tooth of a monkey? "The fragments of bones," said the Professor, "were many of them almost as small as a pin head and it required many hours of time and great patience to gather the pieces together until we could make one perfect whole. We gathered all the surface dirt over an area of twenty-five or thirty feet square and washed it out as the miner washes out the gravel for gold. Then we located the original resting place of the skeleton in the side of the cliff and dug out the remaining bones."

Length of the Skeleton

The Professor says he did not attempt to take complete measurements, but he estimates the skeleton to be two and a half feet long, forming an animal about the size and with the general make-up of a species of monkey, known as the white-faced capuchin. The Professor says some of the bones are missing, but the skull is complete, and it would be a simple thing for any paleontologist to draw a complete picture of the representative of the human race as he appeared long years ago.

Soon after his return to New York Professor Worthman will issue a pamphlet, giving a full scientific description of the skeleton and deductions to be drawn from the discovery. In this work he will be assisted by Prof. Osborne, curator of the museum and professor of biology in the college. Professor Worthman is a modest man and spoke guardedly of the conquest he has made over old Father Time, in grasping from the aged gentleman's hand one of the most sacredly guarded mysteries. In fact, the Professor talked just as enthusiastically about other finds that were made as about the skeleton of the monkey.

"Our object in coming to the west last summer," said he, "was to look for fossils which were deposited at the close of the cretaceous epoch, a period when the sea receded, the Rocky Mountain plateau arose and the fresh water lakes of the mountain region came gradually into existence. It was one of the greatest changes known in the geological history of the American continent.

"Another find," said the Professor, "and one in which the general public may be interested, was the skeleton of what is known as the little horse. This horse was the ancestor of the present species. It may perhaps surprise you if I say that this animal was no larger than a shepherd dog. Instead of a single toe, he had no less than four toes on each of his fore feet and three on his hind feet. The story of the evolution of the horse is one of the most convincing proofs of the doctrine of evolution. We now have materials to demonstrate to the most casual observer the evolution of this remarkable animal from his primitive beginning, away back in the commencement of the eocene period, at least 1,500,000 years ago, up to the present moment."

What's Wrong, Lassie? Rover's In The Well?

1910

Dog's Remarkable Intelligence

Thomas Jones, who owns a big ranch on San Juan island, lost a collie dog last fall for nearly a month, and for several days searched the woods about his place zealously for the animal, without success. One day he tossed a bone to another collie. Instead of gnawing it, he picked it up and started for the woods. He kept turning his head, apparently to see if he was followed, and Jones concluded to follow him.

The dog trotted along for about a mile and stopped at the edge of an abandoned well. He dropped the bone over the edge of the well. Jones got a ladder, climbed down and found the dog that had been lost. There was only about two inches of water in the well, but the animal would have starved to death had it not been for the other. The lost dog was in good condition, and as it had been missing 24 days the other animal must have kept it supplied with food for nearly a month.


The Rule of the Road

There appears to be no definite record explaining the prevailing custom of turning our vehicles to the right in this country. One authority says that it grew out of the fact that in our early colonial days, before the arrival of rigs for pleasure driving, the drivers of heavy vehicles used in transportation fell into the way of turning to the right.

The English custom of turning to the left is an ancient one. It obtains in practically all of the British provinces.

A grizzled driver in Bermuda, asked once why all drivers turned to the left, explained that it was done so they could see just how much room they had.


Strength of Locomotive

A railway engine may roughly be said to equal in strength 900 horses.

Petrarch's Tomb Opened

1874

A singular ceremony lately took place at Arqua, in North Italy, where Petrarch lies buried. The tomb of the poet was opened in the presence of the municipal officers of the town and a few invited spectators that the remains had been inclosed in an imperfectly-made coffin, and that the bones, thus exposed to the effects to the atmosphere, were discolored and moist.

The skull, of medium size, was entire, the development of the forehead being yet perceptible. Several of the teeth were well preserved, and the bones of the body were but little decayed. From the size of the skeleton it was easy to infer that Petrarch must have been a large, robust man.

Permission to examine these honored remains had been given by the authorities to certain students of anthropology, and it was to aid in their researches that the coffin was opened. These gentlemen took accurate measurements of the remains, which were then carefully placed in a new coffin.

The brief exposure to the air, however, had its effect, and the skull partially fell in, while some of the bones were resolved into dust before the eyes of the spectators of this curious exhibition of mortality.

Man Profits by Limp Wrist, Claiming Injuries

1915

Hand Would Fall Limp After Fall in Rail Car, Insurance Claim Following

Minneapolis. — How an obedient wrist bone served as a means of livelihood was told in court by Lester Edward Mills, who confessed that it had netted him $2,000 in the last year. It finally caused his downfall, however, and he will serve an indeterminate sentence in the Stillwater penitentiary as the result of sentence by Judge W. C. Leary, before whom he pleaded "guilty" to a charge of attempted grand larceny on complaint of Ralph Wellington, claim agent of the Duluth Street Railway company.

All that Mills has done to separate $2,000 from railroads, street railway companies and merchants within the last year has been to fall prostrate over a suitcase in the aisle or any obstacle on the sidewalk, gasp for breath and allow his left hand to hang limp from the wrist. Six rides has he taken in ambulances, six fair nurses have smiled at him as the color slowly returned to his face. Five claim agents have drawn checks against their companies and as many times has Mills pocketed the same.

Among the recent settlements made with Mills, according to his story in court, are:

Kennedy Brothers, $400; Northern Pacific, $1,200; Great Northern, $125; Great Northern, $250; St. Paul Street Railway company, $250.

"I have been in just one wreck," Mills told Judge Leary. "That was March 13, 1905, at Fond du Lac, Wis. I was brakeman on the old Wisconsin Central. My left wrist was broken. About a year ago I thought I could use that injury to collect damages from others. At Duluth I got a fellow with a suitcase to get on the street car, and when the car was rounding a curve I fell over the suitcase. I complained that my wrist was hurt. They took me to a hospital. Later I came to Minneapolis and met the claim agent at the West hotel. It was only a few days afterward that I was arrested."

"This may be your first arrest," said Judge Leary, "but it is not to your credit, for all these other claims have been faked the same way, have they not?"

The prisoner glanced to the back of the courtroom, where was seated his young wife. When he raised his eyes to the judge he admitted that he had done nothing but work up fake claims for the last year or more.

Although Mills was arrested at No. 1604 Stevens avenue, his wife gave her address as No. 86 Thirteenth street South. She said she had no idea that her husband had been collecting money in the way he admitted. She thought he was working for a railroad company, she said.

Under the sentence Mills may be confined to state prison not to exceed two and one-half years.

Bones of a Dog Found in "Bomb"

1920

Senders Now Plead They Are Only Two Boy Jokers

OAKLAND, Cal., Feb. 26. — A supposed bomb sent as a joke by two small boys to L. J. Lamb caused the recipient considerable uneasiness until the package was opened and found to contain the bones of a dog.

When Lamb received the package he noted a suspicious piece of rope hanging out. He summoned Police Inspectors Wallman and Flynn, who gingerly opened the parcel and found the bones of a dog with the following note:

"Dear Sir: We hate to inform you that the bones of your ancestors have to be taken from the grave where they have been buried for the last 400 years. The dues that are to be paid every hundred years are forty years overdue. Seeing that there has been no payment on the space for forty years, we are sending them to you, knowing that we could not get in connection with any other member of your family. You may expect them soon. — Manager Brooke, Lender Glen cemetery, London, England."

The inspectors traced the package to two 13-year-old boys, Lester Burpes and Neal Daniel, who declared they sent the parcel as a joke.

Mastodon's Jawbone Found Near Beecher, Illinois

1903

Farmers Near Beecher Make an Interesting Discovery

Farmers widening a ditch near Beecher, Ill., a few days ago made a wonderful discovery of the jawbone of a primeval monster, and those who examined it believe it is a portion of a mastodon. It was found at the bottom of Tim creek, one and one-half miles from the town.

While the men were dredging the ditch the steam shovel struck something hard, which the men thought was rock. Investigation showed it to be a portion of a jawbone of an animal of prehistoric times. The specimen weighs twenty pounds, and has three large teeth. Each tooth, is five inches long and six inches wide, and the molars are in an excellent state of preservation. Other bones have been found in the vicinity.

The specimen is now in the possession of Arthur Struve, a banker of Beecher, and he said that the large jawbone will be taken to Professor Starr of the University of Chicago for examination.

"I want to learn just what animal this jawbone belongs to, and I believe that the territory is full of interesting specimens," said Banker Struve.

Some time ago boys playing in Tim creek found the tusk of some huge animal near the same spot where the jawbone was discovered. It is three feet long.

Her Body Turning Slowly Into Bone

1920

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio -- Mrs. Levi Shroyer, 27, presents to the medical world one of the most baffling cases in history. Experts, the world over, have studied her malady without being able to help her.

The woman's body, from her jaws to her hips, slowly is ossifying. It is feared ossification soon will reach the heart, causing death.

The strange affliction sized Mrs. Shroyer in 1916, shortly after an operation.

Mrs. Shroyer was brought here from the South to take chiropractic treatments.

While under treatment at one time she lapsed into a state of coma. Her heart stopped bearing for five minutes and afterward, she declared, she experienced the feeling of entering another world and having been in the arms of her late husband.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 1.