Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — EATS POISON FOR A LIVING. [ARTICLE]

EATS POISON FOR A LIVING.

Succeed* in His Feat Because Hi Kata Too Mnch to Kill. Poison eating, instead of a means of death, may become a means of livelihood for all who care to adopt it. One man, •’Captain” Vetro, as he styles himself, has for several years been gathering in the cash of those in this country and in Europe who wish to see him apparently endanger his life by swallowing poisons of sufficient quantities to kill a dozen men. His performance has been described in the press of both continents, but it has remained for a New York physician, Dr. P. J. Salicrum, to reach a solution of the mystery with which Captain Vetro’s feat has been surrounded, though many noted doctors have pTonounced it beyond the scope A medical knowledge. Dr. Salicrum explained the secret to a reporter as follows: "I have been for many years deeply interested in toxicology. and have carefully studied Captain Vetro’s performances. It is undeniable that sufficient poison of different kinds to kill a dozen men. I witnessed his performance while he was exhibiting in a museum in this city. “This man eats enough poison to kill outright from ten to fifteen people, but the whole secret is in the fact that he does not only eat enough to kill one or two men, but fifteen. “Arsenic, paris green, phosphorus and ‘Rough on Rats' are what medical men call irritant poisons. They act primarily by producing inflammation of the mucous ‘membrane of the stomach and the intestinal tract. “When irritant poisons are taken in very large quantities, as this man takes them, they produce in a little while such irritation of the stomach that they are involuntarilj - vomited before they have time to pass into the intestines, or, being absorbed, cause no

other harm than the gastritis which he sometimes feels. “He also takes some bismuth just previously to eating the other poisons. It is a noticeable fact that Vetro eats the poisons just after coming upon the stage. The bismuth forms a sort of coat around the stomach, which for a short time prevents the toxic effects of the several other poisons. By the time Vetro leaves the stage the different poisons have not had sufficient time to work themselves through the coating of bismuth formed iu his stomach, and they are ready to ba vomited. “In tlie vomiting process the bismuth is ejected together with the other poisons, and he is ready to again go upon the stage and repeat his seemingly wonderful performance.”—New York World.