The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-03-28
AN HOUR Of HORROR.
Experience of a Man Under Chloro-
form on a Cooling Board.
From The Mocon (Ga) Telegraph.

- lew udts dSO iulolOtluuc OhiC iio
upon one of those cold, hard, comfortess
beds you viii find in the ante-room of nearly
every good physicians office, and if live
until my hair is white | will never forget
that hour under doctors knife.
| was told to stretch my frame upon that
narrow cooling board, and as | did so the
doctor opened his black cases of instruments
and looked carefully over the glittering
steel knives, the sight of which made cold
chillS run over me and made me regret haV-
ing applied for relief. But the door of the
little room was locked, and it would have
been display of cowardice did not care
to make to jump up and run. Other people,
thousands of other people, had gone through
more than | was to undergo-iegs and arms
had beencu off and operations more terri
bic than these had been performed upon
men, and suFely itseemed As though | could
stand few. slashes of.the Knife.
And while the doctor hunted among the
cruel steel things, | looked around me.
There in the corner stood tall glass case,
and in it grinning CHASTITY skeleton: 1t
might have been the bones of one of my
friends, one when in life was my boon com
panion for all / knew. On the wall to the
right was a colored engraving of a mans
interior department. Possibly, would not
have noticed it had | struck it outside of a
doctors office and under other clrcum-
stances; but now, lying on the cooling
board, waiting to see my own blood, | was
forced to observe it closely. What horrld
plcturel So many organs, and each so ten
der, seemingly, that they were liable to be
injured even by bread crust There was
the heart with blood pumps. The lungs,
the liver, the kidneys All delicate, all
liable to be disarranged and yet life, life
with all its pleasures its joys, its blessings,
depended upon tire proper care of each,
And how many men out of picked lOO
knows how to care for any one of those
important organs, and how many out OF
the hundred has any thoughtfo either OF
thems You strikea man with heart dis
ease and the doctors tell him he must avoid
excitement. He does not forget the adj
monition but he feels as though little
excitement, just little, will not hurt him
the doctor is overly cautions, you know
but before the poor fellow knows it he is
meat for the undertaken. Just the same
way with the man whose lungs are affected.
His doctor tells him he must avoid the
cold air and be careful that he swallows
none and thus chill his lungs; but he goes
out of his warm prison of a house and gets
taste of the cool air. 1t feels so good to
his hot face that he makes himself believe
that a moment in that deliciously cool air
cannot hurt him, and then he has wrapped
himself up carefully. But i'll that moment
of enjoyment the cold, raw air has been
drawn into the lungs, and he suffers and
dies. The man with the kidney trouble is
told by his doctor that alcohol is poisonous
to him. Perhaps he bravely ressts the
temptation and abstains until some day he
feels thirsty, water does not satisfy him,
and there is longing for a cocktail, milk
punch, or some other elegant disguise for
II A, SC ffo1 in his n
mind that Just one won't hurt, and down
goes the cocktail or the milk punch. Not
having INDUCED in some time the red
liquor, so pleasantly disguised, soon sends
its fumes to the brain, and while feeling as
if he had fully recovered from all his
ailments, the patient takes just one more,
knowing that it will not hurt. This
makes him take another and by this time
he does not care a continental whether his
kidneys are wrong or whether he has any
kidneys at all
mind while the doctor searched among his
instruments for one that would suit my
case. .+
The little room was close and warm, and
as | wiped my throbbing brow with my
handkerchief, noticed that it was scented
with perfume the odor of which was new
to me. 1t was pungent, but then / care so
little for perfume that | didn't mind it
much, though wondered where | obtained
it. Then took another look about the room.
The skeleton was the first object to meet
my eye. / had to pinch myself to see if
had my right senses, for saw the CHASTITY
thing open the show case and walk out. 1t
flashed across me that the doctor was de-
veloping a living skeleton for some side
show. Then the bones walked all around
the cooling board and looked into my face.
The grinning skull was so close to me that
| could see bits of gold filing in the teeth.
At first wanted to run away, but | re-
membered that other men had had legs and
arms cut off and if they could stand that
much l could stand a triflng operation.
But were those patient people treated to the
sight of skeleton walking about the room
can tell you truthfully was uncomfort-
able Once | tried to rise from the cooling
board, but my limbs refused, to move. Then
| thought of people being transtixed by
fear, and concluded that | too must be
transfixed, for not hand could | raise.
The skeleton moved about uneasily for some
time and then halted under the picture of
the man whose interior was displayed.
And then something occurred that fixed
the scene indelibly on my mind. | saw
the skeleton take the heart from the pic
ture and place it under its ribs on the left
side. Then it took down the lungs and
looked at them as if to say: "You are not
what / want, but I'll have to make you
do" and put them also under its ribs Then
with both long bony hands it carefully
gathered an armful of intestines and things
and placed them in position. Then | knew
what that skeleton was doing. 1t had tired
of life in a showcase and wanted to make a
man of itself And as the thought occurred
to me, forgot my fear and felt as though
l didn't blame the skeleton a bit, poor
thing, but | chuckled to myself at the idea
of its getting things in the wrong place. for
instance, suppose it had put the neart on
the right side! When it had gotten the
bowels right, the partly made man began
stripping the man in the picture of his skin
1t reached up, aud beginning at the head,
stripped it off as you would strip the bark
from a tree; and when his whole skin had
been taken off the skeleton began putting
it on his bones, just as the circus men put
on tights. In short while the skin was
on, and it seemed to me as | watched from
the cooling board, the skin fit it nicely, just
as though it had been made for the bones.
The skeleton, which was now nearly man,
then walked to a little mirror that hung in
the Dom, and after few strokes on the
hair with the doctors brush, moved away
as If satisfied with his appearance. Then
he opened the doors of a wardrobe which
had supposed was full Of jars Of picked
mo1strosities, and took down a suit of the
doctors spare clothes and donned them.
You can imagine my feelings as | looked
upon this man, the manufacture of whom
had seen with own eyes. And then judge
AGAIN my feelinps when that man came 10