Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1889-06-06
A HUMAN CUCUMBER.
Tho Arabian Nights Outdone In Peaceful
Georgia.


The Arabian Nights Outdone In Peaceful
Georgia.
It is well-known that when cucum-
bers are first cut from the vine there
is piece which exudes or bleeds from
the stem. One of our prominent north
ern truck growers, Jared Benson, cut
his hand u year or two ago and this
juice got into the cut and his hand
commenced to infame, and an erup-
ton similar to erysipelas made its ap-
pearance on his hand and extended up
his arm. and finally spread over his
whole body. Strange to say, there
was no pain attending these eruptions
of erysipelas. and he continued
to gather and pack his cucum-
bers and prepare them for ship
ment. To the great surprise of every
body these little erysipelas pimples
assumed the appearance and form Of
small cucumbers and continued to
grow. Although Benson kept well and
hearty, he was compelled to strip him
self and take to his bed. OF course
the news of this strange phenomenon
spread far and wide, and the doctors
and scientific men visited him from
various sections of the country. One
prescribed one thing and one another.
One wished to bleed him; one wished
to cut the cucumbers Off; another said
not to let him have any water and they
would dry up; another said stick a hole
in each cucumber and they would die
and a new skin form; another wished
to wrap him up in mammoth poultice
of barn-yard manure, and draw them
all to one head; another said they
ought to be scattered.
Each had a different remedy, but
they all disagreed. So there was some
hope that the patient would get we'll.
But the small cucumbers grew into big
ones. and his whole body was COM
pletely covered with them from head
to foot and the commenced to ripen
and turn yellow and hang down, and
the man assumed the appearance of a
huge bunch of bananas. When they
got ripe they began to shrivel and dry
up and so did the man. His sap was
all gone and he died. The doctors pro-
cured the consent of the family to per-
met an autopsy to be made, for the
benefit of science, and they cut into
him with their knives. and to their
amazement found no flesh, no bones,
no muscles. no sinews. no veins, no
arteries; but found only one solid mass
of cucumber seeds. 1t was so remark
able that it would be useless to have
the remains inferred and foolish to
have them cremated, and the widow
concluded that she would keep them in
the house. She had the corpse hung
up by the hair in the barn. The next
spring some of the children picked up
some of the seed which had dropped
on the floor and planted them.
They grew rapidly and matured, and
instead of being like the parent stock
of cucumbers, they were pure pickles
and needed no vinegar, no pepper, no
salt, nothing but simply packing into
barrels and shipping to market and
selling. Of course, news of the dis
covery spread rapidly and multitudes
of applications for seed flowed in like
the incoming tide, and thus enabled
the disconsolate widow and children
to turn the cause of their bereavement
into means of maintenance and sup
port. The wind of affiiction was thus
tempered to these shorn lambs. They
sold small packets of seed for big
prices and could not supply the de-
mand. The vine grown from the new
seed is a perennial evergreen and can
be propagated from cuttings, blooms
in the spring and bears in the summer
a bountiful crop OF perfect pickles.
The widow sells the seed at a dollar
paper.-Griffin (Ga-) News.