The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-10-21
[By the Fat Contributor.]
A Doctors Experiments in TRANSMISSION
of Blood.

Since DR.. Dawson of our city has success
fully accomplished the scientific feat of trans
fuslng blood, all the doctors are crazy to
make the experiment. We hear of one who
has tried it with the most astonishing re-
suits. His first experiment was in treating
a man of obesity. He though there was too
much fat in the blood, and concluded it
would be good thing to mix venous fluid
from very lean animal with il. The best
he could do was to get poor old broken-
down circus horse of Mike Lpman, whose
blood seemed thin enough to inhale, almost.
The experiment was successful so far as
draining the circus horse of his gore and
shooting it into the patient was concerned,
but the effect on that fat man is more than
the doctor counted on. His wife went walk
ing with him the first time he was able to be
out, and band of music passing on the
street, he began to prance around, snort and
kick up his heels in the most ridiculous
manner. For an elderly and unwieldly per-
son OF three hundred pounds, or such mat
ter, to behave in that frisky way on the
street, excited shouts of laughter, although
the old man couldn't help it for the life of
him. His wife don't go out walking with
him any more. She says if he is going to
play circus he can't play it with her.
Tue fit comes on him every once in while
new. He has nearly broken his neck sew
eral times trying to jump the clothes,horse in
a hurdle-race. He was caught one day back
ing up rickety step-ladder on all fours, i'm
agining he was Dan Rice's Excelsior" He
is perfectly delighted if he can find sawdust
to play in, and he goes around hunting for
the clowns ocket-handkerchief, which in
stinct tells him is covered up somewhere
about.
They missed him early one morning, and,
after long search, discovered him in vacant
lot where were the remains of an old circus
ring. lie was in his undershirt and drawers,
and going around that ring on a dead run
with the youngest child astride of his neck
head hanging down, and yelling like young
'painter." When they tried to stop him he
reared and plunged frightfully, and shouted
| for the 'banners."
Discouraging as the result of his first ex
pertinent was, the doctor tried it again. He
| had a patient who was constitutionalIy
fighty, beside having same disorder of the
nerves that kept him twitching continually.
| He couldn't sit still two minutes at a time,
but went hopping about here and there
without any apparent reason, sometimes
! acting as though he wanted TO fly. 'Here is
patient" reflected the doctor, "who would
beibenefited by the TRANSMISSION of blood
from some animal of sluggish, inert ma
| ture," and he finalv concluded that an ele-
| phant whould be about the right sort of an
animal for that man to hitch suction-ppe
| to. But elephants are not picked up every
day. They don't go loafing around the
streets waiting for some one to come along
and tap them for their bloed. But it chanced
that one of Old Robinson's elephants was
sent home on little vacation, and the doctor
obtained permission to draw on him, which
he did. The patients veins were filled with
elephants blood; but what was the conse-
quence? He insists on mingled diet of hay
and gingerbread, and can't sleep nights un-
less his leg is chained to stake driven in the
ground. He insists on taking his trunk with
him wherever he goes, swinging it around for
contributions of apples, peanuts and tobacco
guilds. His chief delight is to get dirty red
blanket on his back, and gravely walk the
streets on all fours. He exhibits the utmost
timidity in crossing a bridge, and bellows
fearfully if he has any doubts about its integ-
rity. His friends feel awfully about it. He
was bad enough when he had the jerks, but
now they find they have got an elephant on
their hands.