Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1884-06-13
Every Person a Lunatic Now and Then.

The fact that druggist of this city
has ended human lite by putting up
wrong medicine awakens much indir-
nation. He says many customers were
in the store; he was in n hurry; he put
up morphine instead of some similar
drug. The inquiry arises whether a
clerk is able to fill an order only when
he has no customers in the shop? How
empty must shop be in order to Sc
cure safety? Must the street in front of
the drugstore also he emptyP What if
n fire-engine goes byP What if a dog
fight occurs while the druggist is reach
ing for quinine? Is he justified in taking
down strychniaP What if his mother-in-
law has come to visit him?
Such questions come up and proper
ly; but there is another side to the fact
of erring druggists, and that is, that
most persons are crazy part of the
time. The exceptions are rare Each
one is now and then fool of the most
complete order and species. All the
laws and penalties in the world will not
avail to make druggist or anybody
else have his full senses through all his
life. Crazy moments or seconds will
come. A wise man will step backwards
philosopher will hunt for the specks
that are on his hand or on his forehead.
n hunter will sometimes shoot himself
or his dog, a barber will often forget
his job and slice off piece of chin or
an ear or the nose. A girl at work at
Marshall Fields had been feeding a
great cloth-knife for zen years. Last
week she watched the knife come down
al rsNnr Ixr~ 49, n
out of her stupor with one hand gone.
Tor few seconds her mind had failed
and she sat by her machine a tenn
porary lunatic and had watched the
knife approach her own hand.
The man recently murdered on North
Clark street in Chicago, saw the enemy
come up with murder on his face, saw
him draw revolver. and, instead of
making a lightning spring at the man,
he stood bewildered and thus fell dead.
His reason left him in the second of his
greatest need.
One of the distinguished professors in
one of our colleges was teaching near n
canal. Walking along one evening in
summer he walked as deliberately into
the canal as he had been walking along
the path a second before. He was
brought 10 his senses by the water and
mud and .he absurdity of the situation.
He had on n new suit of clothes and a
new silk hat but though the damage
was thus great be still laughs over the
adventure
Our mail-collectors find in the iron
boxes along the streets all sorts of pa
pers and articles which have been put
in by some hand from whose motions
the mind has become detached for sec
ond. A glove, pair of spectacles, a
deed. mortgage, n theater-ticket goes
IN and on goes the person holding on to
the regular letter which have been de-
posted. This is called absent-miuded.
ness. but that is a brief lunacy. A lu-
natic is a person whose mind is habitu-
ally out of balance
Nothing is more common than for q
mind OF the highest order to become
lost on the cars or on q steamer and 70
feel for hours that for some reason the
train or the boat Is going the wrong
way. 1t is one of the most unpleasant
feelings that can befall traveller. A
good night rest may, perhaps, restore
the mental rectitude and oomposure.
When one is lost in the woods all the
objects Of nature seem false. TIE sun
% fsst 10 b wrong. the streams 10 be