Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 March 1937 — Page 17

Vagabond

FROM INDIANA

ERNIE PYLE

WL LITAMSBURG, Va, March 5.—FEvery morning, between 9 and 10, vou will see a four-w Neck coach, pulled by two black horses, rattling up Duke of Gloucester Street. On the driver's seat is a proud dark “Colonial,” dressed in bright blue, and with lemon colored stockings and cockadoodle hat. Standing on the step, behind, is another fine figure in biwve. Inside sit fine-feathered ladies in flashy Colonial dresses. But quite un-Colonial-like, they are on their way to work. They are the hostesses, who show visitors over the restored buildings of old Williamsburg. This, somehow, impresses me as the nicest touch about the “restoration.” Tt could be pretiy silly, but instead it seems quite paturail. I wish it could be carried further. I wish everything about restored Williamsburg could be carried further, clear to the ultimate end of a complete restoration. I wish they could make Williamsburg a place that you could point “There, right there, is a whole town that lv what it was 200 vears ago.’ of course. Youd have to tear down all the rest of Williamsburg, and circamseribe the old area, and allow nothing new in it, dress all the people as they dressed in Colonial days, make them ride Mm ‘coaches and powder their hair and think thought,

Mr. Pyle

to and sav: looks and is exact You can’t do it,

wl] as Duis Ye detail that amsh ne cVery a story about Stary of made it

into the rastoration of flabbergasting. There is a story be- ¢ of old furniture they have picked up, every mantel piece and everv latch: they found out about it and why they did.

has gone Wi

Mind

MEX

the they

how the way ® ® »

Work World Fill Book

FE \HE work that has been done could be told only in a book of many volumes. And it would he a good tao. I hope somebody writes it. Here are two little samples of what a book could be made up of: No. 1—-From inventories left by Thomas Jefferson. it was know what kind of chandeliers hung in the old Governor's palace, which burned in 1781. sent researching to England, that the East India Co. had sent two chanlike them to China, centuries ago. The went to China. They finally found the in Canton. They had been boxed up for vears in a junk shop. They now hang in Governor's mansion. No. 2-—In digging around the foundations of the old Capitol (Which had burned 200 vears before) found same of the stone fiags which had formed They were identified as having come from

haak :

So two discovered deliers just voung men

chandeliers

young men,

a hundred the restored

State they the floor England Tt was

country

sible fo duplicate them from stone in this But na. They sent to England. and gor the of the same quarry that produced the more than two centuries ago.

Nos

nex

original flags

stone out

No Artificiality Attempted

there has been no attempt to anything. The. idea was to build things just they were 200 vears ago, and if they seem to 100k too new, well, they looked new 200 vears ago when they were built, I suppose. But wait another 25 years, Wait till natural melJowness comes over the brick of the new buildings— brick. incidentally, that was made right here of Williamsburg clay in the same kind of kilns the Colonists used. This $14.000.000 spree of John D. Rockefeller Jr. heen called the most enormous piece of boondogeling since the building of the pyramids—boondoggling that would put the New Dealers to shame. It is that, I Suppos: But J think it's wonderiul.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

W ASHINGTON, Thursdav—rast night the President and I enjoved very much the dinner the Cabinet gives us every year. There have three changes in the official family since the inauguration because of deaths of three men have been in this group —the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. William Woodin: the Secretary of War, Mr, George Dern; and Mr. Louis Howe. Their widows were all with ns and the President expressed he hope that in spirit all the people are still with worked te make the Administration the United States at this time. Cecil, who has a most lovely vo. for us after dimer and then we White House, each of us going to high with work. I noticed only one Joined me at breakfast this moming and he had not been IM on the late sessions last night! For one thing we are frequently grateful to one of our predecessors, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge. She had built a sun parlor on the roof of the White House in which our grandchildren play when they are here, and in which guests who are not well spend most of their time Ethel du Pont is recuperating rapidly and is finding the sun parlor and the roof outside a very good place to be. I think m a day or so she will be going home and I am more than happy we have had this opportunity to have her with us. I had a few extra arrangements to make this morning because Mrs. Scheider and I are starting off tonight on a three weeks' lecture tour. Tomorrow Mr, MacKenzie King will be here from Canada with the President, and all arrangements must be made before leaving for the Easter egg rolling and for one or two social functions which will take place soon after our retum. Yesterday afternoon I sighed a radio contract, and the money will be paid as usual to the American friends Service Committee to take care of numerous charitable interests, 1 am really looking forward to work for T have nat been on a regular radio program for some time

N the reconstruction, artificially “antique”

has

which Been first

whe

ne who have serve the needs of Miss Winifred nranoe vo

ice, sang

returned to the desks piled gentleman

any

thie

New Books

PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS “YY, CAPTAIN ALEXANDER BRECKINGE. | do hereby Milly and freely confess that I introduced a drug into Captain Wendover's food, thereby rendering him unconscious, and apparently drunk for 24 hours He is wholly innocent of the charge that was brought against him, And thereby hangs the plot SPUR OF (HoughtonMifflin), by Percival C. Wren. The Indian Secret Service is involved in the doings of this cashiered Capt. Wendover, who returns from the grave to clear his name. Even more deeply involved is Capt. Breckinge, whose pride in being the grandson of a British general—though also the grandson of an outcast Indian sweeper woman, spurs him from base disloyalty and treachery to a deed worthy of the Victoria Cross The book is permeated with army traditions, with men both true and false, with heroism and cowardice, and with fighting tactics such as only Maj. Wren is capable of depicting.

IL. M8,

PRIDE

” n ”

SPRING thoughts which turn heavily to the problem of redecorating the house mav be brightened considerably by Mary Fanton Roberts’ new book, INSIDE 100 HOMES (McBride). Mrs, Roberts, editor sf “Arts and Decorations,” has selected photographs of outstanding rooms from recent issues of her magazine and has published them in this engaging new volume, Traditional, period, and modern styles are shown, Many famous people are represented by beautiful rooms, wall treatments, silver, table decoration. Among the rooms pictured appesr Fannie Hurst's yemarkable studio, and Lawrence Tibbett's music room, In which a novel and decorative idea for shelving geores Will Interest all who have encountered that particular probiem. Mrs. Roberts concludes with a five-vear decorative plan of speculative ideas, which prospective decorators will find many guiding words of wisdom, \iat

"wo ‘ £0 we

ult

i 1 |

in |

RR ER HT TR TT

The Indianapolis Times

I RIDAY, MARCH 5, 1937

Entered ar aL Postotfice,

Second Section

Second Clase Indianapolis,

Matter Ind

PAGE 17

SURGERY IN FORBIDDEN LAND

Life Begins at 65 for a Lifelong Sufferer Fr om Mastoiditis

(Second of a Series) By JACK FOSTER

Times Special Writer

HIS

is a story that actually began a half century ago—

a time when surgery, still marveling at the revolu-

tionary theory that germs

cause infection, knew only

vaguely of what it was capable. A boy of 15 was stricken with a pain in the left ear.

The country doctor diagnosed the

conditicn accurately

enough as mastoiditis, and he treated it according to his

lights. nal cause by knife.

It ie true that as far back as the early Jean-Louis Petit, for the first time the mastoid process, But it was always considered a risky operation

the great I'rench surgeon,

it since.

But no thought was given to removing the origi-

IRth Century had opened Others had done

because of the grave danger of infection. And so during these 50 years this man lived with an

almost perpetual pain in his treated, and he felt better; ¢ but always the pain returned. Finally it became so terrible that at 65 he wag forced to go in agony to an ear furgeon—an otologist, His face was swollen. and his head was aching so that it seemed actually true that the little devils of Daumier were hammerihg at his cranium. “Youre in a serious condition.” the otologist said frankly. “Yeu re threatened with intracranial invasion.” By that he meant that if the infection spread it would certainly strike the brain and there would be nothing much that anybody could do about it. In short. he'd be a great prospect for Capt. Charon. But old man begged, An operation?”

int there something.” the “that you can do?

” ® » N operation is the only possible treatment,” the otologist replied. “It is a radical operation —I want you te know that. I'll have to open the middle ear to get at the diseased bone, But voure in hearty condition and ought to stand it.” . This was a week ago. He had now been in the hospital for 30 hours resting. Thev had shaved his head three inches around the ear, and he ad make a joke about it. It was his theory that no nurs® had ever heard a joke and he pushed this theory to the limit. His old face was tense, his forehead wet, however, ' was taken into the oper room. Within that bare white scage stood two men who were to have great roles in the little drama of his life that was about to be acted the otologist and the anesthetist. It was the anesthetist who had the first speech. Spoken by the silence of the ether hose, it left the old man, Iving on his side with a sand bag as pillow, sleeping more soundly than the weariest audience, “He's all right. the anesthetist otalogist. Behind those words

Go ahead.” said to the surgeon

lav a world

left ear. Sometimes it was

of study, research, unending experimentation. The use of anesthetics dates back to the earliest days of the medical arts. Herodotus mentions that the Scythians used a form of hemp 10 ease the pain of patients, and in the third century the Chinese had a somewhat similar vapor.

” » » HE Arabs also had sleep-producing drugs. Hugo of Duca, of century, in one of paragraphs,

their And 13th inspired he used

the his records that a mixture of opium, juice of the unripe mulberry, lettuce, hemlock, large round apples, mandragora, woody ivy and several other mgredients, served on a sponge, ta put his patients to sleep before he got te work on them. Despite this some of them did wake up Ether was first used in the 16th Century. Eut this and all other sleep -producing potions were looked upon with aloof suspicion by the medical fraternity, and virtually all operations were performed as you were. You grasped the arms of a husky and howled to high heaven or mavbe vou bit a lead bullet. At anv rate, you had one horrible time of it. You mav remember the story of the woman-—her name, Mrs. Tadd Crawford —who, in Danville, Ky. in 1809 had a huge abdominal tumor removed without any anesthesia whatever. The doctor praved before the operation. She recited the 23d psalm during tie procedure. She lived. A little over a hundred vears aro, however, the real value of ether was proved, and since that time the anesthetist in every sense has been as important as the surgeon in an operation. This is especially true in a radical mastoid operation during which the surgeon comes very close to the facial nerve and brain. At word to “go ahead” the ear surgeon made a quick, singlestroke incision behind the ear following generally the line of the scalp. This surface already had been serubbed with alcoholic soap. Now the bone lay bare.

OK x nk C

ITH a small chisel the surgeon then tapped lightly on the white surface, opening the tympanic antrum and being especially careful not to injure the facial nerve, for this might mean paralysis of that side of the face Tractors had pulled away the skin, a strong headlight poured its yellow flood over the wound, and the surgeon could see clearly Inte the middle ear. With gentle blows he then broke down walls separating several eave ities until at last the tympanic

J. S. HAS ACE IN HOLE IF PACTS DON'T AID NAVY STEEL PROBLEM

By NEA SERVICE +» HARLESTON, W. Va, March 3. | An its controversy with steels makers who do not choose to fare | nish steel for the Navy's new ships under the Walsh-Healey law re-| sirictions, the U. S. Government has an ace in the hole. | The recent wage and hour agreements made with their employees by major steel companies may settle the controversy, but the Government still has its ace. No smoke comes from the chime neys of a great group of long, low

| buildings that 11s unused on the oui-

skirts of this city. Even a few local vesidents have forgotten that these are naval ordnance plants built by the Government during the World War at a cost of $28.000.000. The plants ave idle, but not desorted. A staff of 110, meluding about 50 Marine guards. has been assighed 1o them ever since they closed their doors in 1922, to keep the Government property from dee teriorating. The plants have been costing the taxpavers more than £150,000 a year, even though not in use. » » » WO cabinet members have hinted, labor leaders have demanded, and Congressmen have | proposed, that the Government might as well dump in the four or five millions more needed to put the plants in shape, and make its own battleship steel. Naval armament races out the world, they

throughargue, are

| getting too keen

{ builders’

[enough remains so that

for the United States to let six destroyers and three submarines lie on the shipways for lack of steel ribs and armor plating. The plants were built during the wartime emergency when the country rang with the ery that “ships will win the war!” The site, including 210 acres on the Great Kanawha River above its junction with the Ohio, was donated to the Government by patriotic business men, A projectile plant was built joining the armor plate plant. and this actually tuarmed out shells in early 1918. The armor plate plant was not finished until 1921, after the war, and both were shut down in 1922 when the new naval treaties put a world-wide stop to new construction.

great interest to people the Kanawha Valley, and on Naw Day curious visitors are escorted through the plants under the eve of guards. To the casual visitor, in the intricate machinery of steel making, the plants seem ready to produce tomorrow, Permanent buildings are more than 500 feel long, some resting on solid reinforced concrete founcations set 5 feet deep to bear the heavy machinery,

unversed

adoo

Yr oas are giant open-hearth making armor plate, and other equipment for the casting of proJectiles, There are huge eranes capable of handling heats of from 7 to 250 tons of molten metal. All the remaining machinery is kept greased and in good condition. A thousand men worked in the plants once, and Charleston people nave pricked up their ears at the sight of a possible new Federal payroll They point out that since the war when the Government's Charleston plants were built, the Kanawha vals ley has also become a great center for the chemical industry, and that the two logically go together as related units in the national defense Several times it has been pro-

» ” »

PERATION, personnel and producetions records Were highly secret, and just what the plant could do at present is (ittle known except to the Navy Department, Which has its recvds and main. tains an inspectar of ordnance, Commander DD. K. Day, in charge of the plant. Much of the machinery has been transferred to other naval plants, sold as junk, or otherwise dismantled. But it believed that | with new production of could be re-

equipment added, some Kinds of s‘eel sumed fairly soon. The silent »lants with their Marine guards are aun object of

interests, but the Government has alvvays drawn back from any such agreement, despite at least two reccmmendations by Navy boards that {the plants be disposed of.

ed except for Navy ak FH verpment hole” in its

wing

W. Va, is the Government's “ace in the t with steelmakers,

At the word to “go ahead”

and electric steel furnaces for

| posed to sell these plants to private |

| revive and achieve a very

the ear

antrum, the tympani and the mastold process were one continuous cavity, The mastoid bones were badly diseased, and there was cons siderable free pus. Carefully now he began move, hit by bit, these bones. Little taps the chisel did it. Little taps that if they were only hit heavier would have caused the chisel to plunge into the brain and thereby allow no waking from this anesthetic sleep. But the hands of the surgeon were steady. They had skill and patience as their helpers. Chip, chip! Sliver by sliver the bone was removed, Finally all the diseased bone lay in the white enamel pan at his feet. Only a few fragments of bone actually, vet what agony for SO many years they had caused.

{to re-

» » ”

sur gean made a swift,

SE dl ie

single-stroke incision,

closed the wound, placing a drain in it. A week later the old man again was wheeled into the operating room at dawn. During those seven days on his hospital cot he had felt pretty bad. He hadn't even thought up a good joke to tell the nurses, But the surgeon was sats isfied with the job, and now he was poing to complete it, He removed the drains and, clipping a flap along the back of the ear Jobe, he grafted this over the middle ear to replace the membrane he had destroved. Then he sewed together at last the ens tire wound.

Complete healing in such operas tions takes rather a long time, It was three months before this old man was 100 per cent well. But when he went to the doctor for the last time his hearing had been wholly restored, the pain had dis= appeared, and he felt entirely too well, Life at 65,

was beginning for him

NEXT-The Gin “Who Stared,

Sullivan Sees Possibility

Of G.O. P.

By MARK

ASHINGTON, March 5.<The radio address of Republican Senator Vandenberg of Michigan | against the President's Supreme | Court proposal this week was a landmark of a phase of the cons troversy, a phase that mav have fue | ture consequences, Mr. Vandenberg | was the first Republican Senator to | speak This silent waiting by Republican Senators has been largely deliberate. Immediately after the President | made his proposal the Republicans | realized that they were, all told, | only 16, only one-sixth of the Sen- | ate. The Republicans knew, that if the proposal were to be | beaten, or if even a formidable showing against it were to be made, it must be a case not of Democrats joining Republicans but of Republicans joining Democrats, for in any formidable showing of opposition, more votes must come from Democrats than from Republicans,

) | { |

in short, |

” ” ” { es situation is a reflection of |

a deep-lying condition. Ever since last November's election, ins deed ever since the New Deal emerged, it has been apparent that there was possibility of a new political lineup in America, Either the Republican Party must much larger representation in the Senate and House; or, in the absence of that, the Democrats Party must split and provide both the factors of a two-party system, ” ” ” HE New Deal and My, Roosevalt are on the opposite side from several of the oldest and most |

from the New Deal that the two are practically irreconcilable. The Democratic Party supported iia for

state rights—and.it is.

Disappearing

SULLIVAN

the purpose, among others, of greats ly reducing state rights, that Mr, Roosevelt, now interpretation of the Constitution, to be brought about hy enlargement of the Court,

Constitution——and it is striet construetion that Mr. Rooses velt now makes his attack upon the Supreme Court, » » » OR the immediate future certain steps on the part of the Repub- | ifeans are possible, and some seem called for. There are Republicans,

[some of them fairly important in |

leadership, who think that, in view of the present crisis, the Republican Party ought to voluntarily disappear from the scene. More immediate than the Presis dential election of 1940 are the Congressional elections of 1938. In 1938 there will be elected the entire membership of the House and a third of the Senate. A Democratic member or Senator

| who must go before his constituents

for re-election next year is obliged to take that fact into account in considering his present course, Some of the Democratic Senators now op= posing the President on his court proposal do not come up for reelection until 1942, others not until 1940, but some must face the test in » » » UCH Democratic Senators would certainly feel more free to speak and vote their convictions on

re<election in their several Several of the

| Democratic Senators who are strong

from Southern or border states, In many of these the Republicans have little chance of electing Senators at any time,

proposes a changed |

The Democatic Party | advocated strict construction of the | because of |

Qur Town

By ANTON SCHERRER ABIGAIL BIGGS (circa 1830) was the

most discriminating shopper Indianapoe lis ever had, and a lot of surprising things women do nowadays can be traced back to her, Mrs. Biggs had a different technique for everything she bought—at least, everything she hought at Luke Walpole's store. For example, she alwavs matched colors in the broad daylight, because she

couldn’s trust Mr. Walpole’s artificial illumination. It very often worked out that Luke found his whole stock out on the street after she left. That was the least of her repertoire, however, She figured the tensile strength of calico by bit ing into it, and if she had any doubt about the number of threads to the square inch, she would start chewing the stuff, She moistened her fingers to appraise the quality of linens, and when it came to judging the woolens she didn't hesis tate to spit on them, Right out in the open, too, It was her neatest trick. A disagreeable smell was the sigh of a pretty good woolen. but Abigail wouldn's think of buying unless the woolens gave off mosh horrible odor, Which is why the women around here couldn't keep up with Abigail They mouldn’t dig tinguish the nice nuances, They had her technique, but they didn't have her art Just about the time Ms, got our first bank, too, to worry about,

Me. Seherrer

Biggs got anda it gave us

poing rood, we somatning more

We caught on mighty fast, however. onee we sensed the similarity between the pawnshop system, operated by most of our trading houses, and the new bank.

” ” ” Only Terms Differed

HE main difference Our trading houses, for instance, demanded a pledge, and the new bank asked for collateral. and once you got the distinction through your head it was rasy enough to understand. Snaky Sam, an Indian, got it. Sam saw a chance to clean up a fortune if he could zet $100. and so somebody told him about the new bank. The bank people wanted to see the color of his collateral, and Sam said he had 25 horses, "O, K.” said the new bank money, Sam made $1000 on all his obligations, and then the bank people got awful solicitous about Sam's future and told him that for his own good he ought to deposit his fortune in the new bank. "Let's see your

was one of nomenclature,

and the deal

lent him the and (lfilled

horses,” sajd Sam.

» o ” More Cyclorama Noles

HICH still leaves William George Sullivan, whe refreshed me the other day with some more observations on the old Cyclorama Building, Mr, Sullivan doesn't believe that the old place stopped with the "Battle of Atlanta,” because he dis tinetly recalls that sometime around the turn of the century, Bostock's Zoo made its winter quarters there, putting on shows once or twice a day with Captain Jack Bonavita's trained lions as a headliner. Mr, Sullivan also has a vague recollection of a fubsequent panorama, “The Crucifixion,” occupying the old building, but he isn't =o sure of (hat as he is of Caps trained cats, I'm sure he ean't prove it by me. I wasn't in Indianapolis at the time. Never mind why,

A ———— i

A Woman's View

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

TR Jana a city,” says Mayor New York, "is like housekeeping, I've always said that women could run a city as as men.” It seems to me this is fact. "Better than men” and correct phrase Knowing that women have had ages of experience in petting value for the money they spend and in budgeting incomes, wouldn't you thifk the gentlemen might some day be smart enough to ask for our help in dispensing public funds? We do all the family buying, Most of the money in circulation eventually passes through our hands, We are the traditional bargain hunters. Thousands of husbands turn over their salaries to their wives, who use the sum wisely and to the best advantage for all concerned, Our judgment is relied upon in all minor and most major transactions from selecting a house and a car to picking out the kitchen pots and pans. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that a little of this training ought to go a long way toward helping out in affairs of larger scope? But just get the men to adinit it! Because they are experts at figures they have the notion they can best attend alone to the public busi= ness, although each is willing and even glad to leave

La Guardia of That's why well

a gross understatement of would have been the exact

weekly

| his private shopping in some woman's hands. |

So we see the men, day after day, juggling with their imposing lists of figures, adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing, as if the ability to make the answers come out even were any sign of financial competence. Yet they make no effort to get value for the public money they spend, which is the basis of all business wisdom. If ever a country needed a after its financial affairs, that country States In 1937, It almost makes on end to see the wastefulness regarded as efficiency in every the county court house to the

Your Health

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Editor, American Medical Assn,

few women to look is the United one's hair stand which seems to he public office, from national capitol,

Journal HE worst epidemics of whooping cough oceur in winter, and it therefore is difficult to distinguish the early symptoms of the disease from those of the ordinary cold. The first stage of whooping cough is a period of about 10 days in which the victim has an ordinary cough and typical symptoms of a cold. After five or six days, however, instead of getting better as one usually does, this cough gets worse and begins to ocour in spells or seizures. At first these are rather mild and there may be only two or three of them a day. Finally they get a little more severe and frequent, especially at night, Then the typical “whooping” begins, This introduces the second stage of whooping cough. It is known that the attacks of coughing may be aggravated by exposure to cold drafts of air, tobacco smoke, cold drinks, overexercise, or any other irritant. Sometimes the coughing may be so severe as to cause nosebleed, One of the worst features of whoop= ing cough is the fact that the child is unable to eat, or loses his appetite, so that his nutrition suffers. The second stage of whooping cough finally passes, in four to six weeks, into the third stage in which the spells of coughing gradually decrease. In many cases the child will get well in another week, but there are instances in which whooping cough has lasted fwo or three months, and even longer. Most serious in this period is the possibility of a secondary attack of bronchitis, secondary infection of the ears, pneumonia, or secondary attacks of severe bleeding from the nose or throat, It is believed that one-half of the whooping cough victims under 3 months of age die of it, and that perhaps one-fourth of those who later get the disease die when they. become infected. With proper care, however, and use of modern methods, most such fatalities may be avoided,