Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-17
OLD ALCOHoL'S GRIP.
The Cause of the Many Recent Deaths
From Delirium Tremens.
JOHN BODEN THE LAST EXAMPLE.
A Proprietor of a Speak-Easy Dying at
the Mercy Hospital.
THE JUDICIOUs USE OF sTIMULANTS

1t was reported last evening from Mercy
Hospital that John Boden, the young man
who was arrested Sunday forenoon on the
charge of keeping an illegal saloon at No.
q Soho street, was in a very low condition
and hardly expected to live until morning.
He is an able-bodied young man of about 80
years, who kept saloon in this city before
the enactment of the Brooks law. Almost
continuously since that time he has been
running a speak-easy in the Thirteenth
ward.
Sergeant Robert Gray said last night,
"Boden was brought in about noon on Sun
day. That evening about o'clock he had
a fit in his cell. He was located Immediately
beside the stove and the temperature reg
istered 800. He hurt his head slightly on
the floor and DIR. Meyer was called and
dressed the injury. He was removed to
another cell and watched him closely all
night. 1t was plainly to be seen that he
was saturated with whisky and was suffer-
ing from nervous prostration because he was
cut off. As is our custom here, in cases of
that kind, I gave him little whisky dur
ing the nightto keep him up. About 4
o'clock Monday morning he went into
another fit. DIR. Meyer was again called
and ordered him removed to Mercy Hospital
at once"
LITTLE WHISKY NEEDED.
Inspector McAleese had his attention
called last night to the recent deaths from
delirium tremens at the jail, and he said:
"The cause of so many sudden fatalities in
such cases is that the men are suddenly
deprived of whisky and they collapse. I
ls~l- a =. AL
in the case of common drunk. we give the
prisoners a. little whisky now and then, in
order TO keep them from a nervous break
down. If whisky were given at the Jail,
judiciously, there would be fewer of these
deaths from alcoholism"
A man of many years experience in the
public service, now in charge of the morgue
at night, who has seen much of criminal
life and drunkenness in this city, said to
reporter last night: "There have been two
corpses here within "a hours, brought from
the jail. In both cafes death was caused by
delirium tremens. The secret of such
deaths is that the men, having been on big
sprees, are suddenly deprived of whisky
and locked up. Their nerves go to pieces
and they die of nervous collapse or in fit.
Public officers who are employed in jails
and other correctional institutions seem to
consider 1t a part of their duty to see that
no liquor is conveyed to prisoners. Just
why they think that can't tell. Many of
these lives would be saved if whisky were
given. reckon some people might think
that most of these people are not worth keep
ing alive, anyway. That's bad mistake.
THEY COME OF GOOD FAMILIES.
"Both Mclaughlin and Way, whose bodies
we have had to-day, came of good families
and were decent fellows except when they
went on these occasional sprees. That was
their infrmity and not their crime. There
was Fry, who died in the Jail short .time
ago of delirium tremens. He was q good
fellow, of excellent family, and went to
pieces in his cell simply because he was cut
short from whisky. His last words, heard
by fellow prisoner, we're about his mother.
1 remember q case last year where man
was taken in on big spree, lockedl.up in
the station house and sent to the workhouse.
He didn't get drop Of whisky after his ar
rest and be died in the hands of the officers
while he was being carried from the railway
train at Claremont to the workhouse. You |
will find, in most of these cases, that the |
immediate cause of death is heart failure"