The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-06-22


apprehension.
One popularity about the application of
fossil corallnes is their strange adhesion, at
| times, to wounds. The writer happened
o day TO see a noted maidstone applied TO
three children, two boys and a girl They
were all bitten on the hands or arm. The
stone, after being placed in boiling water,
was applied to one Of the boys. and adhered,
seeming to absorb something from ths
W und, but after fifteen or twenty minutes
dropped of. After being boiled again and
applied to the wound ON the second day il
would not adhere, but did so to the wound
on the girls arm. The excited parents of
these children started home, apparently
satisfied that a great calamity had beea
averted. We could only wish we knew that
were true. These children, who seemed not
nearly so much interested in the matter as
the parents. had been bitten two days be-
fore, and had Travelled over a score of miles
Inc day after the children had been
treated man and his wife made their
appearance, also seeking the maidstone
This man was also farmer, and told the
following story in substance: the same dog
that had bitten the children had afterward
entered his door yard and attacked his own
dog lying on the front porch A savage
fight ensued between the animals. and the
farmers dog was badly bitten and torn.
Both dogs were shot. The farmers wife
who was neat housekeeper, Immediately
after the affraV set to work scrubbing the
froth and blood from the floor of the porch,
not thinking at the time that she had cut
on her hand that might have come in con-
tact with some of the saliva from the rabid
dog. This matter so preyed upon her mind
for a neighbor had recently died from
hydrophobii. that her husband took her to
the maidstone
The woman was very much excited, and
we actually feared for the great strain on
her nervous system while the owner
Of the stone was preparing it. When
applied the stone at once became fixed to
the wound on her hand, and did so for the
third time, when it fell off and would adj
here no more. The go woman SCENE |
wo derfully relieved, and when they started
for home some hours later her nerves had
not yet obtained their normal state. Still
she was apparently as happy as could be-
Nor did she OF the three children suffer any
bad off cts from the occasion afterward, al
though it was currently believed that COW
bitten by the same dog had died of hydro
phobia.
Still this was only negative evidence,
really. The chances were very slight that
the small wound on the woman's hand had
absorbed any virus, but the chances were
frightfully large of hydrophobic symptoms
being the result of her highly excited nerv-
GUS system. Neither could it be doubted
for single moment that the maidstone in
this particular instance was beneficial, This
maidstone is tertiary fossil, with the mouth
OF the coralities open and without maxtrim,
of which, although rare. there are living
representatives in some of the warmer
waters of the tropical seas.
Another noted maidstone is of the same
species, and tertiary coral This has,
during the last half century, by repeated
bolllngs III vinegar, water and other liquids
been reduced until it is mere fragment
Recently the owner-an old gray-headed
farmer in Jersey county, Illinois-was
given new and ferfect one. His perfect
faith in the new, like his faith in the old,
never wavers for a moment. The old mans
faith is simply founded on the fact that no
one to whom the stones have been applied
have suffered from hydrophobia. This is
simply more negative evidence.
The writer has, without entire satisfac-
ton, however, endeavored to convince him
self that the action of the stone in adhering
to the wound was purely mechanical one
after the manner of cupping glass, and
that each coralite or polyp cell became a
sort of valve, and exerted from a vacuum
created.
He has not quite satisfactorily endeavored
to attribute the action of the stone to the
peculiar construction of the 'polyp cell
itself. 1t is well known to naturali5ts that
all ral-makilg polype have renarkab e
lowers of absorption and secretion. Eaor-
nous masses of coral are built up in the sea-
the polype, in some strange manner, alb
sorbing the stony matter from the sea
water. The little a imals build their houses
about their bodies, never leaving their
abode even for food; this is absorbed also
TIE peculiar radiation of the ce Is forms a
sort Of cillia, and, although stationary, NAV
have acted as such. We do not know what
peculiar substa CO the polype absorbed as
food. No one see MS to know this. But we
do know that amid the tainted waters of
the early seas, when nothing could live on
land and no very high organization in the
water, the coral polype fourished prodigi-
ously, and it is thought by one of our best
naturalists of to-day that the polype of
the sea, like the plants of the coral, alb
sorbed the virus from the element in which
they live.
1t is not at all beyond the province of ma
lures laws that she might arrange a cell
structure SO that it might absorb certain
substances. In vegetation every rot fibre
absorbs its peculiar substance and never
departs from it.
The investigation of the maidstone NAV
be thought by some to be unprofessional, but
who can tell but that it might lead to profit
able resultss N iture provides poisons, but
we know she provides antidotes as we'll
Any one who has had the misfortune to see
fellow man die of hydrophobia will feel
an inter est in any investigation of the sub
ject. Then again, if it could be shown that
t ere was any reaso able evidence that
there was no such thing as the transmits
sion of rabies, and that hydrophobia
was simply an affection of the nerves
through the mind, and if the application of
the maidstone served to allay that excite
ment, soothe the nerves by satisfying the
mind, it were none the less valuable. And
also, it must be admitted that even if it
could be shown that hydrophobia has been
brought on by nervous excitement through
the mind, it does not at all prove that rabies
cannot be transmitted by tae virus from a
rabld d &. And it may be a satisfac ZION
for S me to say that no one need despair, if
a maidstone will help him, should he be in
great extre nifty, and ma ~ would as lief
trust to one as to the microbes of III. Pas