Louisiana capitolian. (Baton Rouge, La.) 1879-1881, 1880-12-11
PETR1f1ED WHILE ALIVE.
and exciting circumstances.

YETklflEU WHlLE ALIVE.
!. Zone ofthe most heartirending car
g that ever came under my notice, y.
said a well-known Louisville physi-
clan, twas that 81 d man whose death
could not affect bis relations, because
he had none; but the manner Of his
dying was so awful that it was q call
upon common humanity for sorrow.
He was 3 young fellow who at the
breaking out Of the war, when he
was twenty years old, enlisted and
fought we'll under Confederate ban
ners. In the terrible warfare about
Nashville he was exposed to the rains
and colds, and contracted inhamato-
ry rheumatism, from which he never
recovered, and which caused his res
ignation. He returned to bis home a
miserable creature, and was never
afterward able to- walk. For fifteen
long years he was dying As slowly
and surely, and with as much torture
as the most refined cruelties Of hu-
man invention might have produced.
Opiatesi OF course opiates were
administered, but what Of the mo-
ments when the influence had waned,
and when, rushing upon him like
wolves Of torture, made ravenous BY
hunger, the pains broke through the
veil Of insensibility and tugged vt
his frame with teeth Of cruelty 7 The
very immunity which opium gave
added another horror when 1t was
withdrawn. He was kept under its
influence as much as possible. In nine
years be had lost every power Of
muscular effort, and sat in his chair
living corpse, only to be moved to
his bed, where he became u mummy
with the spark OF life still glowing.
The time shortly came when he no
longer lay in his bed, but sitting in
his invalid chair became the enthron-
ed embodiment Of q soul too misera-
bic for life, too sacred to be freed BY
other hands. So he sat year after year,
with his muscles fixed in iron, bis
his eyes looking upon world az
dreary ~ misery could paint IL; biz
voice sinking 10 his throat, only to be
expelled by hunted nature in wild and
piteous cries when the pain raeked
into hopeless eowardice the strong
heart that had led his men TO the
caverns Of lannon's mouths without a
finch. y Fixed and rigid, the poor
boy was a sphinx, endowed with life
and deprived Of movement. Every
Joint in him become ossifed by the
chalky deposits, not even move
4 ment that provoked deathless agony
became possible. Even the joints o.
his neck became rigid, the fingers
stiff, and the limbs petrifed. He was
q stone frame with covering Of flesh
and the soul of q living man. The
muscles Of the eye even failed, and
the lids falling upon the weary balls
shut in forever the darkness that was
about him like the gloom Of the
grave. Then came with the same
step of measured eternity the ossifi
cation Of the joints of the jaw, and
he was fed between the rigid teeth
How slowly death moved cannot be
described, but when the intlamma.
ton had seized the heart in that last
prolonged spasm, nature could nc
longer give warning of its agency
What tortures took place under the
curtain of that human mystery can nc
more he told than the secrets of those
horrors in the lowest dungeons Of the
inquisition. Death came, but it was
like the fading of the mist-line into
the clouds, and as we stood about that
chair no one uttered his thought
none could tell whether the soul still
lurked in the prison or whether
death was life or life was death.
When he was buried his fixed limbs
were broken with hammers, in order
that he might be placed in coffin.
/ A Galveston man furnishes the
! following certificate of a really valua-
/ HE medicine "SiS months ago