The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-04-15
AN ANOMALY.
Debating DETAILS OF ONES OWN
DEATH,


SEQUEL TO AN EvENTFUL LIFE-A CHRONIC
| INVALID TAKES POISON AS A REMEDY AMI
DIES WHILE Debating HIS SYMPTOMS TC
HIS WIFE.
The Sentinel has already announced by
telegraph the death of Mr.. f. w. Walker,
grand master of the Masonic fraternity OF
Illinois. The New York Sun has the fol
lowing particulars of his eventful life and
strange death: A most remarkable death in
Brooklyn on Saturday night promises TO
make O page of scientific history IN
equalled by any thing in the treat
ment of nervous diseases. Mr.. 4. w.
Walker, an electrician of 800 State street,
was, in November, 1871, run over by pork
truck at William and Cedar streets, New
York, and when he was picked up his face
was trampled in gashes by the horses, and
his right hand was so mashed that the fiageTs
could not be distinguished from diScoE-
nected flesh. He was carried to the Wash
ington Lite Insurance building and attended
by police surgeon. Then he was removed
to his home in Plainfield, n. j., and there
he recovered, but he carried a manned
hand, and the muscles of his face were
thoroughly involuntary in their action,
pulling bis features into every sort of con
tortion. His eyelids dropped heavily, and
the muscles were powerleSS to raise them,
so that for hours be would be as a blind
man. He managed large insurance bust
ness, and his affliction made him unfit to
continue his occupation. He was man of
very large acquaintance ard culture, well
known to all the hangers On at Washington
and many famous senators, was an intimate
friend of Andrew Johnson, and as cOrTC-
spondent OF the Express, before aud after the
war was begun, he was known at the
capitol and in this city. His family
was exceptionally cultivated, and
the large society of friends who visited
him tried to alleviate his suffering. He
sought DR.. Brown Sequard, and put himself
under the treatment that DR.. Sequard had
used in Charles Summers nervous affection.
The physician scared his forehead and face
with an iron heated to white heat and cut
many facial muscles, taking small bit out
and then soaring the ends of the incised
muscles. He frequently returned from Dr..
Sequard's presence with his face SCARED
and
Scared BY THE HOT IRON.
Mr.. Walker was bald headed, and over the
rows, back and forth, until it was marked
like checker board. The scars healed away
under proper treatment. DR.. Sequard gave
a series of doses OF strychnine, hoping to
have il act as a sedative on the nerves so that
when they once came to rest they might
be kept so by the use of the drug. 1t did
not prove strong enough, and its use was
abandoned, DIR. Brown-Sequard putting
more faith in the moxa. After DR.. S.
guards wife died he went to Paris, leaving
his patients in care of other physicians.
He sent Mr.. Walker to DIR. Agnew, the cell
ebrated oculist. Mr.. Walkers eyes began
tt grow worse, and he was troubled with
sight. DR.. Brown-Se-
guard, when he sent Walker to DIR. Agnew,
advised him to have the internal rectus
muscle of the eye divided as a remedy for
-.
work well, and the eyelid-the right one
was cut--dropped heavily down on the OPP
posite side MIR. Walker then used court
plaster to make the eyelid true
again. He intended to have
stitched. but Or. Agnew had the cartilage
of the eye divided with no better success.
The interior OF the eyelid filled with little
granules, which infiamed the eye so that it
was very sore. Mr.. Walker began to ex
pertinent on these himself, and by a gal
vanic process he removed them. He
studied electricity with the aid of his wife's
and sons eyes, experimental largely, and
pursued the subject so far that he deter
mined 20 use it as a medicine. He was
driven out of every calling almost by bis
great af1iiction, and he began to search for
patients for static, faradic and galvanic cleo |
tricity. He hoped in this way to ac-
quire more competent support for his fam |
lily, and by research, perhaps, to find per
Brooklyn last December, and opened an
Office at 800 State street, and put sign on
his house making known that he was a |
medical, faradic, static. and galvanic cleo |
trlcian. His social and genial nature at
tracted to him large numbsr of friends,
who submitted to his practice, and in many |
cases we're benefited by 1t. he turned into |
his sixty-fifth year, and hale, hearty and
buoyantin every way,
HIS AFFLICTIoN WAS THE MORE INTENSE.
He went to DR.. Agnew again and favored a
him in his Office and began to administer |
extract of hemlock. Prof. Harley, of ST |
Thomas Hospital, London, had directed the |
use of hemlock for nervous diseases, and |
one day last week DR.. Agnew used it sue
cessfully on a little girl who was troubled |
with the terrible afflictioH. DIR. Agnew and |
DIR. Webster on Saturday gave him in their |
office forty drops of hemlocx, and in hall |
hour they gave him forty more, and in |
half hour forty more. The drug was ex-
pected to act directly on the nervous center, |
all of the muscles of the body, |
a state of relaxation. The l2O
drops did not work. The doctors then gave |
sixty drops more, and the $50 drops of the |
most energetic poison did not move the pa |
tient. A tea made of hemlock had killed |
and three grains of the extract as
home made nowadays ought, the doctors |
say, TO move almost any person. One hun |
bred and eighty drops had not moved Mr.. |
Walker. DR.. Webster advised Mr.. Walker |
TO stop on his way home and get some of
DIR. Edward Squibb's fluid extract of hem
lock, which is the strongest, repre-
senting one grain for every minum or
drop. Mr.. Walker bounded into his
house on Saturday afternoon, and seemed
full of health. He said to his wife that DIR.
Agnew had given him much hope. He
went to his library table and began to dictate