The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-10-14
SHOCKING REVELATIONS.
How the Dead at Wards Island Hospital
Have Been Mutilated by Physicians.

NEW YORK, Oct. 13.-The investigation
as to the manner in which the bodies
Of people who die in the hospital
at Wards Island are treated by the ply
sicians IN charge there, was yesterday begun by
the Wards Island committee of the Board of
Emigration Commissioners. Sexton Peter
Krapohl, the undertaken on the island, was
called as the first witness. He said he Rad been
undertaken for one year, having served the pre-
vious two years as orderly in the hospital He
had charge of preparing for burial all bodies to
be Inferred on the island. An anymous letter.
which called attention to the alleged ghoulish
practices, read to him. and he was asked to
give. in his own way, all that he knew about the
manner in which the bodies were treated before
burial. Krapohl said that almost every body
was subjected to a post norton exami-
nation, and he knew of cases in which
they had been mutilated by various physicians
When asked to enumerate cases, with dates and
definite explanations, he produced a book in
which entries of deaths had been made by him
during the year. He read off these instances
brain and stomach were removed; Catherine
Farrell, a child, born dead on Dec. 81, 1885, was
skinned and the body boiled Krapohl said he
performed these operations. acting under orders
the child was fully developed one. That was
the only case in which he knew of body hav
ing been skinned boiled. Julia Rlchendch,
twenty one years old, died March s. last and her
head was cut off. skinned and cleaned by DR..
Walker, who had the head carried to his rooms.
On May % last Claus Bursch committed suicide
on the island. The coroner was notified. Be-
fore he arrived an autopsy performed on
the BODY. The top OF the skull was sawed
off and the brain removed. Krapohl was then
which he did by taking the top of the skull from
the dead man lying OH the slab and putting it
on Burschs's head Coroner MESSENGER after
ward called. viewed the body. and gave q permit
for burial, without discovering that an autopsy
had been performed. On June last, Gustav
Frederick died. and his body was placed in the
dead house in the morning. The house was
locked up, but in the afternoon, when the I'M
taker returned. both the eyes were gone, and
the right eye of a man lying another slab had
been taken out Fredericks wife afterward
came to see the body of her husband, and when
she found cotton stuffed in the holes where the
eyes ought to have been. the witness said:
''She kicked up an awful row." Kraphol then
enumerated seven other cases in which male and
female bodies had been dlssected by various
physicians, Krapohl said he knew what he was
talking about, for he had been present at every
of the autopsies, with the single exception
of the one in which the two men he spoke Of
had been left minus their eyes. The under
taker knew of one case in which part of
the leg of corpse had been cut off, and an
other where the physician had removed the upper
half of mans skull taking eye with it. In
several instances infants had been dissected,
and. after the bodies had been sewsd no. they
were placed in the collins, the parts taken out
for examination being placed in the collins by
the sides of the bodies-not put back in their
respective places In answer to question by
the chairman. Krapohl said that he did not con-
slider it his duty to report these occurrences to
the commissioners.
Commissioner Stephenson elected from him,
however, the statement that he afraid to do
so for fear that the physicians would have him
discharged as they had others disposed of for
reporting their actions Krapohl said he did
not know whether the physicians got permission
to make autopsles or not, but he had heard rela-
tives strongly protest against them.
DR.. MARBLE the physician in charge at Wards
Island here delivered what Commissioners Hurl-
but called "sockdolager" by saying that in the
case of the man who had lost his eyes, the un-
dertaker had carelessy left the body too near
the floor, and during his absence from the dead
house the rats had eaten the eyes out