Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1892 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OP EVERY DAY LIFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Dr. Dunstmaier. of Germany, according to a report in a Berlin paper, lias been conducting a series of curious experiments to substantiate the theory of Dr. Jeager, that the soul of man or animal is to be found in the characteristic odor exhaled by eneh. He put a number of rabbits in a cage in a room, and then admitted a savage dog. The dog, of courso, rushed at the cage and endeavored to get at the rabbits, frightening the timid creatures almost to death. After he had worried them for two hours, lie was killed, and his nerves of smell, with tho mucous membrane of his nose and throat, wore removed and rubbed up in a mortar with glycerine and water. The doctor’s theory was that thus he should obtain a solution of the timid souls of the rabbits; that this was the fact the following experiments seem to prove: A few drops of the mixture was administered to a cat, and, after it lmd been given time to take effect, she was put into a cage with some mice, Instead of taking a dinner of fresh mouse meat, a _* one would naturally suppose, tho timidity of the rabbit had been instilled into her soul to such a degree that she made repeated efforts to get away from the mice, seeming to fear that they would nctuully pounce upon her. By a subcutaneous injection of only two cubic centimeters of the extract, a largo bloodhound was mndo so cowardly that ho away and tried to hide* when put in an njiartmont with some rabbits. Dunstttiaier says that ho hag extracted tho soul substance of cowardly men and administered it to the bravest of the Prussian soldiers with the effect of making them so timid that they would not leave their rooms or tents after nightfall. On ouo occasion he swallowed a doso of his “psyeliotypie timidity,” which had tho effect, of making him doubt his own marvelous discoveries.

A peculiar case of bone-breaking near Bnrboursville, W. Va., is attracting the attention of the medical fraternity throughout half tho State. Mrs. Peter Kelly, wifo of a well-known citizen, is the victim of a disenso which tho local surgeons and doctors, for want of a better name, call fragilitas osiuru. Mrs. Kelly, who is a delicate lady, wns just getting around after a long and serious illness when, a few nights since, she got out of bed anil started downstairs to get a drink of water. When but a few steps down one of the bones of her right leg broke with a peculiar, glass-like snap, without having come in contact with anything and from no apparent cause. She called her husband, and lie phkod her up and started back toward the bedroom. with his wife, when tho bones of her right and left arms broke in several places with tho same peculiar simp heard and felt by tho woman when tho first, fracture occurred. Mrs. Kelly was carried to the bedroom and laid on her bed, when the bones of her left leg broke in tho same manner. A surgeon was immediately sent for. He sot the broken limbs and bandaged them. Mrs. Kelly said that slio felt no pain when any of the fractures occurred, and that 'the setting and bandaging of her broken limbs occasioned her not the slightest discomfort. The disenso is a strange one, and the outcome is awaited with a great deal ol' curiosity and interest. The physicians say the bOtio-brcnktng is caused by a deficiency of animal mid a superabundance of mineral matter in tho bones. They say the bones will knit very rapidly, but that tho disease is difficult to cure.

“Human VAMrniEs”are often referred to but they are seldom seen. However, thero is a verituble one in tho prison at Washington, D. C. His name is Brown, and his case is one of the most remarkable in criminal annuls. Ho is a Portuguese, and when about - tweuty-two years old he shipped as cook on a fishing smack from Boston for a trip up tho coast in the summer of 18(17. Thero was a crow of about thirty men, and one day ono of the men disappeared. It was thought that ho liud fallen overboard. Next tho mate was missed. Two days afterward his body was found hidden in the hold, and near it the body of tho suilor. There wore small cuts in various parts of tho bodies. The men sot a watch and were rewarded by seeing Brown steulthily creep up to the bodies and move them to another part of tho hold, where ho was cough , sucking their blood. He was placed in irons, taken back to Boston, and tried for murder. The defense was insanity, but the jury brought a verdict of guilty and Brown wus sentenced to bo hanged. A few days before the day set for the execution President Johnson interfered and ordered him removed to the Government Insane Asylum at Washington. But before the transfer was made Brown killed one of the keepers with a cleaver, and when discovered he was lapping his victim’s blood. Ho was Anally sen 1 , back to Massachusetts, where he remained for fifteen years, but he is now at the prison in Washington. Thirty-five years ago his crime was tho talk of the nation.

I)n. Laudeu Buuntox, a London physician, has made a discovery which, according to the Daily News, ought to entitle him to the gratitude of all who live by intellectual labor. It is nothing less than the secret of how to have ideas at will. One night, after a long clay’s work, this eminent physician was called upon to write an article immediately. He sat down with pen, ink and paper before him, but not a single idea came into his hend, not a single word could he write. Lying back, he then soliloquized: “The brain is the same as it was yesterday, and it worked then; why will it not work to-day?” Then it occurred to him that the day before he was not so tired, and that probably the circulation was n little brisker than to-day. He next considered the various experiments on the connection between cerebral circulation and mental activity and concluded that if the blood would not come to the brain the best tiling would be to bring the brain down to the blood. It was at this moment that, he was seized with the happy thought of laying his head “flat upon the table.” At once his ideas began to flow and his pen to run across the paper. By and by Dr. Brunton thought. “I am trotting on so well I may sit up now.” But it would not do. “Themoment,” be continues, “that I raised my head my mind became an utter blank, so I put my head down again flat upon the table and finished my article in :hat position.” A new field of competition vith men, recently opened up by that indomitable spirit of progression chancteiizing women of the present, is tbit of atilt racing. It is unique, though after all would seem to be but lapsing back to first principles, since it is primarily one

of the pleasures off childhood to be enjoyed regardless of sex. It bids fair, however, not only develop into an art, but, in common with baso ball, cricket, and other games dear to the heart of the small boy, to have a fine financial outlook. The key progress in thin new line of occupation has been sounded strangely enough, not by America, biit France, where, according to Kate Field’s Washington, a race on wooden legs recently took piace from Bordeaux to Biarritz and back, a distance of 303 miles. The entries for the race were eighty-one, and when the cavalcade on stilts set off from the Hotel de la Gironde to tho inspiriting music of a brass band it was accompanied by a company of bicyclers who were to follow in the wake to insure the observance of fair play. Among the racers was a man who claimed to have traveled on stilts from Moscow to Paris. A quarter of an hour after the start had been accomplished the band was again called upon to play for eighteen women and girls who essayed' to mako the run of fifty miles from Bordeaux to Cerans and back the same day.

The quaint old Austrian custom of a bride being cast off, ns it were, by her countrymen, when she takes to herself a foreign husband, was an interesting feature at the recent marriage of the Archduchess Louise of Tuscany. In describing tho ceremony the Brooklyn Citizen says: Tho archduchess entered the church followed by a long train of royal and noblo Austrian ladies. They stood in a semi-circlo around her until tho moment tho bridogroom placed the ring upon her finger; then they turned ana left her, for she was no longer a coun-try-woman of theirs. For a moment tho princess stood alone—unattended; then a number of Saxon ladies ranged themselves behind her—she had become a Saxou. At tho marriage of Mario Antoinette this custom, which in her case was observed only on the French frontier, lmd a pathetic denouement. When tho Austrian Judies attempted to leave tho new daupliiness of Franco she refused to bo left, and, us if foreseeing what her fato would be in her adopted country, clung to them and entreated them to take her back to Austria aguin. Actual force had to be used to separato her from her attendants. A man who met *with shipwreck off tho coast of Cuba and had to take to an open boat, tells of the peculiar hallucination, called by sailors the “Paradise craze,” brought on by exposure to the terrific heat of tho sun’s rays. He says: “Tho sea nppeared to be transformed into a mighty mcadqw, bright with flowers and musical with song of birds. Cool springs burst from crystal rocks and tricked over golden sands, and men and maidens danced beneath the trees. Thoy seemed beckoning mo to join them, and I plunged over the side of the boat into forty fathoms of brine. The bath brought mo to my senses, and I reached the Cuban coast moro dead than alive. Tho mania is of frequent occurrence in tropical seas and is often referred to by tho poets.” There has just died at Wharton, Ohio, one of the most remarkable of creatures, an “infant” aged twenty-nine years. Tho child, or young man, or whatever it could bo called, was tho son of Austin Bodon, and during all tho years of its life was nothing move than a moro iiabo. It developed in no respect and died in its cradle. It could not walk nor talk nor recognize any one, and was as helpless when it reached its manhood as tho day it was born. Doctors were completely baffhd and could do nothing, mid for twenty-nine years its. death had been patiently awaited. There woro born in Aspen Col , rt)v cent-iy to the wifo of John Hughes a second edition of tho Siamese twins, differing onjy in the manner in which they were joined together, these being face to face. The children are two wellformed boys,'weighing sixteen pounds, with well-developed heads, arms, and legs, but with but one body. The mother is twenty-three years of ago, and woighs'but 100 pounds, She has been married four years. A rajlhoad man named Ross Ward lias tobogganed down Pike’s Peak on a bourd three feet long and a foot and a half wide, to tho bottom of which was nailed a cleat to serve as a keel. This keel fitted between the rack rails of the cog railroad. The distance covered was nine miles, with a descent of 8,000 feet, and the time made wns 11 14 minutesWurd did it for a wager of $23, but says he would not repeat the feat for $0,000,000.