Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1895 — CURED BY CAT HIDES. [ARTICLE]

CURED BY CAT HIDES.

REMARKABLE RESCUE FROM DEATH BY PNEUMONIA. Thirty-two Cat Skins Appliod Warm and Bloody. Several Doctors Had Abandoned All Hope. Thirty-two cats died recently in order that a Cleveland man, sick with pneumonia, might live. At least the wife and friends of Robert H. Bonnallie, insist that the cats, through their warm skins fresh from pulsating, living bodies, brought Mr. Bonnallie back from death’s door to life after all hope of his recovery had been abandoned by the physicians in charge of the case. James Bell, a friend of the sick man, is responsible for the cat experiment. Bell was a watcher in the sick room, and when he heard the doctors agree that death was a matter of only a few hours, be timidly suggested a lemedy that he had heard of years before, and one that he had always regarded merely as an old woman’s superstition. This was that if the skin of a cat be placed while warm on the breast of a person ill with pneumonia, the inflammation will be drawn out immediately. When Bell suggested the remedy to Dr. licet es, who bad charge of the case, the only reply he received was, - ‘well, it cau certainly do no barm,” Emboldened by this tacit approval, Bell went out and hustled for a cat. There was, strange to say, no cat in the Bonnallie household, so a kindly disposed neighbor furnished a pet tabby for the experiment. Bell killed the cat, took off the skin and applied it warm and bloody to the sick man’s chest. Though the man was to all appearances dead—he bad been unconscious for hours—the result came quickly. “Thirty seconds after the application of the warm cat’s skin," says the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “the patient’s facial expression changed; from a drawn, suffering appearance it relaxed until a peaceful smile played around the lips. “ ‘What in the dickens have they done that makes me feel so good?’ he exclaimed. The patient’s condition became much easier as the minutes passed. In the natural course of events the heat passed from the cat’s skin and the twitching of the patient’s face gave evidence of returning pain.” By that time another cat bad been obtained and its skin took the place of the first one. The warmth remained in the skins for about an hour and the catskin applications were kept up until thirty-two cats had been sacrificed. The patient was then declared out of danger, and since then be has improved steadily and rapidly until now he is convalescent. The skins were applied with the raw hide to the body. It was noticed that the best results came from those skins that were removed from the cats’ bodies before life was extinct.

Au interesting feature of this cat killing is that nearly thirty (leveland homes were desolated of their pets, for the city is not like New York and Brooklyn, overrun with homeless creatures that cry out for extinction. When the search for a cat was begun an appeal was made to several of the neighbors, but in nearly every case the cat was a family pet and the solicitors met with no encouragement during a hunt that, lasted more than an hwur. It was late at night and a request of that kind at that hour was received in various ways. Some thought it a huge joke, others an excuse by burglars to secure an entrance to the house. Some of the persons thought the request to be an insane freak and turned the visitor away from the door with scant ceremony. Where there was a child in the family was heard a childi.-li scream of horror, says the Plain Dealer, as the youngster gathered her pet kitty in her arms and ran away and hid with the precious creature. Finally at the home of David Roe on Eaton street was found an animal for the sacrifice. The Roes hated to give up their house cat, a beautiful maltese, but to save a human life they consented to give it. Soon the sympathies of several small boys were enlisted and the town was scoured for cats. Before the thirty-second cat was killed the Bonnallie woodshed contained hundreds of them ready for the knife. They were released when Mr. Bonnallie had recovered enough to show that their hides were not needed. Mr. and Mrs. Bonnallie are loud in their praises of cats’ skins as a cure for pneumonia.