Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-04-26
THINGS WEIRD AND GHOSTLY.


THINGS WEIRD AND GHOSTLY.
Grewsome Experiences That Medical
Students Have Sometimes.
Everybody has always wondered WHY Young
Sawbones ever went in for studying to be a sur.
geon. He is such nervous chap that 1t is q
mystery how he will ever be able to chop peo
pie up with any of that GOODNESS of blood which
whether natural or acquired, must be SO in.
dispensable requisite in the practice of such q
profession. 1t was only the other evening that
MS courage was severely tested by an adventure
which befell him at the medical college.
He was alone in the dissecting room. the
other students having taken their departure
some hours before, and his own detention was
occasioned merely by the extreme interest he
felt in the study he was making of certain i'm
portant muscles of the chest and side The
subject was an unusually fine one having
oeen IN life tramp OF very powerful build,
and afforded an exceptional opportunity for
anatomical observation. To get the right arm
out OF the way Sawbones forced it up with no
little difficulty and managed finally to secure
1t by fastening the right hand of the corpse be-
meath the head. whereupon he proceeded to
examine at leisure the muscular structure
aforesaid.
ONE HORRIBLE TALE
1t was with no little surprise that. upon hear
ing clock strike not long after he listened
and counted twelve mournful strokes in sue
cesslon-so absorbed had he been i'll his labor
Midnight! He could hardly realize it and for
the first time he felt rather oppressed by the
solemn stiffness Of the dreary place at such an
hOtlr. when all the city asleep and grim
death in mutilat-d forms lay all around him.
with something of feeling of dread that he
could not altogether control he bent over his
work, thinking to himself of stories he had
heard OF adventures in dissecting rooms
For instance, he remembered being told of a
grewsome thing that happened to a medical
student IN a Philadelphia dissecting room.
working like himself alone at night over a
cadayer. The place, silent q tomb, was
rather nervous spot to toll in, and it is not
astonishing that the student should have been
startled when he heard a strange, unearthly
sort of squeak proceeding from the other
end OF the apartment.
The graves were opened and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the streets of Rome"
UNPLEASANT IMAGININGs.
Like flash the lines passed across his mind
the unburied dead lying, covered with sheets.
upon the tables near. Suppose, upon turning
around, he should find them all sitting I'D and
looking at him, silently, Again that saueaki
This time there was certainly no mistake about
1t. 1t came from the farther end of the room
and, as 1t was repeated at intervals of a few
seconds, he perceived that it was approaching.
He looked steadily into the gloom that thick
ened toward the distant part of the hail. try
ing to pierce it, when suddenly there came
INTO the edge of space on the floor that was
lighted by shaded gas burner three tables
away human skull.
From the skull there came another soueak
and then another as it slowly crawled-if one
might so phrase it-across the lighted space on
the floor toward the student 1t proceeded by
little jerks, uttering now and again the curious
squeak described and grinning with its yellow
teeth-one of which was missing, the student
noticed-at the embryo physician. who stood
rooted to the spot until the awful thing got
within two yards Of him and then he gave one
yell and tainted dead away.
The janitor of the medical school, who slept
above, heard the cry and ran down stairs to
find the student lying on the floor of the dis
secting room and near by a skull with a large
brown rat imprisoned in it. How the beast
became so entrapped was a mystery; but in
trying to make its escape, it had dragged the
skull all around the hall. squeaking plaintively
as II went.
GETS 1T IN THE NECK.
Young Sawbones, as he bent over the cadaver
dissecting out an important muscle from the
right chest. had got himself into rather an I'M
pleasant frame of mind over the recollection of
this story. and had just come to the conclusion
that he would spend only five minutes more
over his task, when he was suddenly felled to
the ground by terrific blow. lie did not wait
to see what had struck him, but made three
jumps for the door. tumbled down a short
flight of stairs and fed for home
On the corner just block away he found
two policemen, who promptly seized him on
suspicion and demanded what he was running
away from. He explained as well as he could
and IT was arranged that they should 90 back
10 sci nn nj md q
were any ghosts or live persons about who had
no right on the premises. Upon entering the
dlssecting room, however, everything Vas
found III statu quo save that the right arm of
the subject on which Sawbones had been oper-
ating was lying by the side of the corpse. xvi
IDENTITY the hist had come out from under the
head. where 1t had been fastened and the rigid
and once powerful arm had resumed the posi-
ton from which it had been forced with an en-
ergy that sutficed to knock young Sawbones
down.
AsKELEToS HAND.
Sawbones procured a bottle of whisky from a
private shelf and gave each of the policemen
taste OF 1t. They filed their tumblers up to
the brim with the raw material and drank il
on without so much as blinking, while the en-
bryo physician told them OF similar story he
mad once heard about a student, who, while
dlssectinS at night alone. felt grasp upon his
shoulder and turning his head saw a skeleton
800 iN''4HS 'Aeto' TIC was Ddu!y frightened,
but tie explanation was simply that one of the
fellows had hung the bones OF an arm and hand
artlculated together, from the gas fixture over
the table to dry. The piece of string fasten-
ing up the end toward the hand had been
singed by the match in ligh ting the gas and it
broke later on, letting the hand fall apon the
students shoulder. Sawbones says that he
doesn't mean to do any more dissecting at
night himself.
Written for The EVENING STAR
Duty Done.