The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-23
AN OBSCURE SCIENTIST.
Mr.. Nye's Researches in the Interest of Do
mestic Animals.


Detroit Free Press.
If there be one thing above another that revel
in it is science. l have devoted much of my life
to scientific research. and though it hasn't made
much stir in the scientific world so far ! am
positive that when | am gone the scientists of
our day will miss me- and the rednosed theorist
will come and shed the scalding tear over my
humble tomb.
My attention was first attracted to insomnia
as the foe of the domestic animal, by the strange
appearance of IA faYorite dog named Lucretia
Borgia. / did not name this animal Lucretia
Borgia. He was named when | purchased him.
In his eccentric and abnormal thirst for
| blood he favored LucTetia, but in sex he
did not | got him partly because he loved
children. The owner said Lucreta Borgia was
ardent lover of children, and [ found that
he was. He seemed to love them best in the
spring of the year, when they were tender.
He would have eaten up a favOrite child Of mine
If the yOungster hadn't left rubber ball in his
pocket. which clOgged the CLOTHS Of Lucretia till
| could get there and disengage what was left of
the child.
Lucretia soon after this began TO be restless.
He would come to my easement and lift up his
voice and howl into the bosom of the silent
night At first | thought that he had found
some one in distress wanted to get me out of
doors and save my life | went out several
nights in a weird costume that l had made up
of garments belonging to different members of
my family. | dressed carefully in the dark and
stole out to kill the assassin referred to by
Lueretia. but he was not there Then the
| faithful animal would run up to me- and with
almost human, pleading eyes, bark and run
! away toward a distant alley. | Immediately
decided that some one was suffering there.
had read in books about dogs that led their
masters away to the suffering and saved PEG
pies lives, so when Lucretia came to me with
his great, honest eyes and took little mementoes
out of the calf of my leg and then galloped off
seven or eight blocks, L followed him in the
chill air of night and my mosaic clothes. |
wandered away to where the dog stopped behind
a livery stable, and there, lying i'll a shuddering
heap on the frosty ground, lay the still white
features of a soup bone that had outlived its
usefulness.
On the way back [ met physician who had
been up town to swear in an American citizen.
who would vote twentycne years later if he
lived. The physician stopped me, and was going
to take me to the Home OF the Friendess, when
he discovered who was.
You wrap tall man with a VIM II. Seward
nose in a flannel robe, cut pain. and then put a
plug hat and sealskin sacque and arctic over
shoes on him, and put him out in the street, I'M
der the gaslight, with his trim, purple ankles
Just revealing themselves as he madly gallops
after hydrophohia- infested dog. and it is not.
after all, surprising that peoples curiosity
should be a little bit excited
After had introduced myself to the physician
and asked him for cigar, explaining that |
could not find any in the clothes ] had on.
asked him about Lucretia Borgia [ told the
doctor how Lucretia seemed restless nights, and
nervous, and irritable days and how he seemed
to be almost a mental wreck, and asked him
what the trouble was.
He said it was undoubtedly insomnia" He
said that it was a bad case of it, too. L told him
[ thought so myself l SAID didn't mind the
insomnia that Lucreta had so much as did my
own. 1 was getting more insomnia on my hands
than could use.
He gave me something to administer to Lu-
cretia. He said must put it in link of sau-
sage and leave the sausage where it would an
pear that didn't want the dog to get it and then
Lucretia would eat it greedily.
did So 1t worked well so far as the admin
istration of the remedy was concerned. but it
was fatal to my little, high strung, yearnful dog.
It must have contained something of a deleteri-
Gus character, for next morning a coarse man
| took Lucretia Borgia by the tail and laid him
where the violets blow. Malignant insomnia is
fast becoming the great foe to the modern Amer
lean dog