Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-10-12
The Iowa Mad. Stone, Which is Said to
- Have Saved SO Many Lives. i

a. ST. gsf3si -hn--8 aaB ,augg
Yesterday Mr.. Evans, of Par
is. was in this city, says the Cedar Rap
ids Republtcan, and we asked him for
the history of this remarkable stone in
his possession. Where the stone, was
discovered is not known. The first that
is known of it and it's wonderful prop
critics is that 1876 years ago it was in the
hands of an old Virginian by the name
of Evans, a distant relative of it's pres
emit owner. At an early day its fame
was known throughout the surrounding
country, and cases innunerable of bites
by rabid animals and poisonous snakes
were successfully treated with it. Adam
Evans, father of the present proprietor,
came into possession of it through his
father, in the year 1912, while living
near Boone Station, Kentucky. For IS
years it was an infallible remedy in his
hands, and upon his decease it fell to
Turner Evans, the present owner, who
was then a resident of Paris, in this
county. He has operated with it for 26
years, and says he never knew it to fail
in curing the most hopeless cases of n.y.
drophobia. For some time his friends
and neighbors scoffed at the idea of it's
virtues, but after seeing him treat nu-
merous desperate cases among horses
and cattle, credulity in it's remedial pow
ers were founded on uncontrovertible
fact. Since then none who have seen
it operate a doubt its efficiency. He
has had $50 cases, men and animals to-
gether, some of them after spasms had
set in, and in no single ease has the lit
tie treasure failed to give instant relief
and ultimate and lasting cure. The
stone is very small, being no larger
than the end of a mans thumb, and
weighs less than a quarter of an ounce.
In appearance it looks not unlike a
bit of dark sponge, except that the
grain is close and the pores not so
large, though they seem to extend
nearly from side to side. Examined
through q glass, it looks like flint, and
about the mouths of the pores are dis
tinctly seen dark colored rings of mat
ter resembling sand stone. In shape it
is triangular, having but one flat sur
face, which is called the working face.
Before operating, it is heated in a solu-
ton of milk and water, one part of the
former and three of the latter, to blood
heat. The patient is made to exercise
until the blood c~irculates freely, then
the skin of a portion of the body near
the bite it scratched with a sharp
pointed instrument until the blood
shows, the stone is applied until it is
filled with the. virus, and then taken off
and soaked out in warm milk and
water. Applications are continued I'M
til the stone cease to stick, when the
cure is completed. Once applied to
an infected person it a not be removed
without considerable difficulty, so great
is its power of suction. 1t has been
known to stick to a single person be-
tween eighty and one hundred times.
Upon the flesh of a person not innocu-
lated with the saliva of d rabid crea-
tureit has no more effect than an Ordina-
ry pebble, unless the individual be dis
eased with salt rheum or scrOfula, in
which case it's action is simular to that
in a case of hydrophobia. 1t is thought
that these latter diseases could be cured
with it, but MI. Evans has never under
taken to do so.
The medical fraternity have long
since given up finding a sure remeoy
for this terrible disease, but Dr.. Evans
has had numbers of cases where the
patients had had violent spasms andap-
peared to be about at the door of the
most horrible death known, and has
never lost a case. Among the more
recent cases he has had was that of Mr..
Bruce, of Mechanicsville, who, upon
arrival at his house, was already given
to nervous, painful jerkings Of the
limbs and back. The case of Mr.. Field,
of Chicago, whose cure we noticed in
Mondays Republican, was similar. Nj.
Field told us that for twenty-four hours
before the stone was applied he was
subject to the most tortuling involun-
tary jerkings and twitehings of the
muscles, and that he suffered untold
agony in both mind and body. He pro-
nounced his cuie radical, and said that
he would have rather given all he was
worth than not to have been treated by
it, as he verify believes he should have
gone mad without. ANY one that hears
him talk can not but have full faith in
its powers. e. HgfA