Woman Shoots Out Her Aching Tooth

1920

BALTIMORE, Md. — As remedy for a toothache Mrs. Teresa Kwedar, 50 years old, of Mount Winas, sought to shoot out the offending tooth with a .32 caliber revolver. Mrs. Kwedar was brought to St. Agnes Hospital here with a bullet wound near her right ear. Her husband said she had carried out her threat to shoot her tooth out if it did not get better. At the hospital Mrs. Kwedar said the wound was less painful than the toothache.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 4.

Small Alarm Clock — Ouch!

1903

A novelty in the way of an alarm clock has been perfected by an American jeweler. It is about the size of a hazel nut. It is made to wear on the finger. The alarm is not a bell, but a sharp pin, which pricks the finger at the time the wearer wishes to rise.


Electricity Saves Windmill

In Germany electricity, among other curious results, has rehabilitated the discarded windmill. At Neresheim a windmill applies power for thirty-six incandescent lamps that light a large paint factory. Another in Schleswig-Holstein keeps a steady current of thirty volts. At Dusseldorf a windmill winds up a heavy weight of which the descent works a powerful dynamo.

Carbuncles

1899

In a previous article it was stated that pimples, boils and carbuncles are essentially the same thing — an inflammation of the skin and of the tissues immediately beneath it — and differ only in size. But while this is true, the difference in size is fraught with consequences so serious as to constitute practically a point of distinction between two separate diseases. In a carbuncle the inflammation is usually more deeply seated than in a boil, and is spread over a much greater surface. It is also accompanied by signs of a general disturbance of the system, signs which are usually absent in the case of an ordinary boil.

The appearance of a carbuncle is generally preceded by a little feverishness, headache and a general ill-feeling, and sometimes by one or more slight chills or a chilly sensation. The first sign of the local inflammation is a swelling in the part affected. This may be nodular, as if several boils were beginning together, or even and rounded, like a pad of cloth or tightly pressed cotton.

After growing somewhat in circumference, the carbuncle begins to swell, pushing up the skin, which is of a purplish-red color and hot to the touch. Small blisters may form over it, break, and exude a clear, sticky fluid, which dries and forms scabs.

In time a number of small openings appear and discharge pus. All the tissue involved in the carbuncle dies and is thrown off. Whitish or blackish shreds are discharged through the openings already formed, and later the entire remaining mass becomes gangrenous and melts away, leaving a wide, deep hole, which may take weeks or months to heal.

The neck is the most frequent seat of carbuncles; then come the back, the scalp and the face; the trunk and limbs are seldom invaded.

The pain is at first comparatively slight, but soon grows excessive, with violent throbbing and burning sensations, as if a live coal were buried in the flesh. A person with a boil can usually attend to his regular duties, but one with a carbuncle is gravely ill.

Sufferers from carbuncles are almost never vigorous; the aged are much exposed to them, and they frequently attack sufferers from Bright's disease or diabetes.

The treatment of carbuncles coincides in part, with that of boils, but the patient is usually so ill that there should be no temporizing with simple remedies. The physician's aid should be invoked at once.

Secluded Veteran Dies After Five Years of Leprosy

1910

Badger Leper Dies

Passes Away After Five Long Years of Affliction

Lived Life of Seclusion in Building Set Apart for Him at the National Soldiers' Home In Milwaukee.

Milwaukee, Wis. — Albert S. O'Gorman is dead. Milwaukee's leper, after nearly five years of retreat in a little brick house on the grounds of the Soldiers' home, is no more. Death came quietly. It was the gradual dissolution of a body wasted by disease, that could no longer find strength to meet the daily strain demanded of it.

O'Gorman was a soldier. He served many years in the regular army, seeing service throughout the east and west. He joined the ranks when the war with Spain broke out, and was one of the foremost in Cuba and the Philippines. It was while with the army in the islands that he contracted the disease which brought his death.

Upon his return from war, O'Gorman entered the regular service in various army posts. Then he was taken ill. He asked a pension, and permission to enter a soldiers' home. The request was readily granted. A monthly income of $72 was allowed him by the government. He was ordered to the Milwaukee national home.

Then, and not till then, did O'Gorman learn the true character of his malady. He was examined by staff physicians, who diagnosed his disease as leprosy. There was no help for him, they said, and preparations were made to arrange for his comfort during his lifetime.

In a corner of the grounds a small brick house, once the home of one of the officials, was set aside for him. It was a two-story structure, with three rooms — a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom. Furniture and books, utensils and regulation clothing were furnished him, and he settled down to live the life of a recluse during the remainder of his days.

That was five years ago. During the intervening time, O'Gorman lived almost happily. Two of his daily meals he prepared himself on the cook stove in his little kitchen. Each day an orderly brought his dinner to him. Tobacco was supplied in abundance. Papers and books were plentiful. He was a deeply religious character, and spent much time reading the Bible, sitting on the low steps of his dwelling, basking in the sun.

To look at the man, one would not realize that he was the victim of the most horrible of diseases. He was inclined to a pleasant personality. None of the horror or fear of the evident indications of leprosy were shown.

O'Gorman suffered especially during the winter time. Cold weather, he complained, increased the steady aches and pains to which he was subjected. During last winter, he failed slowly but steadily. Spring came, and he rallied slightly; but his system was too far gone, and the convalescence proved only temporarily.

O'Gorman was born in Ireland in 1856 It was in 1874 that he came to the United States. He settled near St. Paul, Minn., and it was from there that he was recruited into the regular army.

The case of the patient attracted much attention throughout the country. He was one of two individuals in the United States afflicted with the plague.

Several times the state department and the secretary of war considered transferring his case from Milwaukee, but there were no leper colonies where he might be sent, and it was decided finally, that he could be best cared for in the little brick building in which he made his home.

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Aug. 26, 1910.

Hornets Got Him in Tree — and Other Painful Stories

1909

CHESTER, Pennsylvania — His head swathed in bandages, his sight temporarily gone, a leg and arm broken, and a rib splintered, Albert Thachrah, aged 15 years, of Aston Mills, is suffering from the effects of a fierce battle with a nest of hornets.

He was high up in the branches of an apple tree, when, in attempting to save himself from falling, he grabbed a branch to which a huge nest of hornets was attached. Immediately the angered insects began to sting him, and the boy tumbled to the ground, breaking his arm and leg and splintering his rib. Being unable to run, Thachrah was easy prey for the hornets until his cries brought relief and he was carried to a place of safety.


Mad Dog's Scratch Fatal

WAVERLY, New York — A scratch from the paw of a rabid dog was responsible for the death today of George Murray, the 4-year-old child of a local merchant. The boy was playing near his home one afternoon, three weeks ago, with two older boys, when they were suddenly attacked by a strange dog. The other two were bitten and were sent to the Pasteur Institute for treatment as soon as it became known that the dog was made. The Murray child's injury was so superficial, however, that no alarm was felt. yesterday he developed unmistakable symptoms of rabies and died today in great agony.



Tiger Chews Boy's Arm

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — During the arrival of Campbell Bros. show, Ernest Hammond, aged 13, leaned against a tiger's cage and the animal seized his arm, breaking it at the wrist, and lacerating it so that amputation may be necessary. The boy was held by the tiger for ten minutes before the keepers could pry its jaws open with iron bars.

Morphiomania – An Addiction, Must Have Morphine or Opium

1878

Morphiomania

Morphiomania has become a great scourge in Berlin since the introduction of opium injections as a relief from bodily suffering and sleeplessness.

Tradespeople, merchants, judges, barristers, soldiers, students, doctors and clergymen become the victims of the habit, and when the medical attendants are called in it is too late to counteract the evil.

At first, these subcutaneous injections offer the quickest and easiest means to allay pain and bring rest to the sufferer. But to prove effectual in its cure, the treatment must be continued for a certain time; and during that period the patient becomes so accustomed to these skin injections that they become indispensable. When the medical practitioner refuses to increase the doses, the patient unable to sleep or rest without the calming injection, procures the necessary instruments and applies the remedy himself.

Sometimes, also, even after the patient has been cured without any undue doses, and when he should dispense with the opium injections, he delays doing so under the plea that they make sleep and rest so well. In fact, when once these subcutaneous injections have begun, they can rarely be left off. Like drink, the appetite for them increases until chronic drunkenness ensues.

Man Drinks Painkiller, Fined $5 and Costs

1920

Remedy Containing 65 Per Cent Alcohol Proves a "Dazer"

ST. LOUIS, Mo., March 25. -- Go easy on the rheumatism medicine.

That is the advice of Allen McKay of this city. McKay was arrested on Ninth street in a seemingly dazed condition. A policeman said he appeared to be intoxicated. He was called before Judge Mix next morning.

"It was rheumatism medicine," he told the judge. "It contained 65 per cent alcohol, but I didn't know that when I drank a bottle of it."

"Did it cure your rheumatism?" the court asked.

"It killed the pain."

"Five dollars and costs."

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