The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-10-09
SHE WAS NOT DEAD.
Maggie Whelan Awakened on a St. Loui,
DfsgPctiuE Table,

Maggie Whelan Awakened on a St. Louis
Dissecting Table.
a girl awoke on the dissecting table in
the City Hospital one night recently while
the doctors were cutting open her body in
the interest Of surgical science.
She still survives the City Hospital
butchers, but wears the scars Inflicted by
their lances.
Her conventional name is Bertha John
son, but she was baptized with the name OF
Maggie Whelan % years ago IL Louis
vile. KY.
The child of respectable parents, who
were able to edu cate her in the best
academies of the South, her life was sunny in
her early girlhood, and Providence smiled
upon her.
But the hopes and aims Of her family
were soon blasted, and parental pride was
ruined when Maggie Whelan left her home
and came to St. Louis, where she has Tor
the last five years INCREASINGLY INDUCED in
the gayeties oil life.
She developed a passion for drink which
has left It's Impress on her frame, and this
passion has now led her into the morphine
habit She was unconscious from the effects
of the drug last Wednesday night, when she
miTaculousy escaped the dissection.
Her story is weird, but true, and is terri
VIC dll VI tlt management Ul Ltb
City Hospital Young doctors anxious tu
keep their hands in practice attempted t0
carve up the young girl before she was dead.
Ii there were real doctors present Mt the
time IL is strange they couId not distinguish
between morphine sleep and real death.
Maggie was called for breakfast last
Wednesday morning by her landlady,
Claude German, at 1909 Chestnut street, bu.
no answer came from the chamber
The door was battered in and the oecu-
pant was found unconscious. a morphine
bottle told the story. She was taken to the
dispensary, whence she was sent to the City
Hospital. This was at noon. AT 2 o'clock
ii was reported she was dead, and it was 10
o'clock that night when she awoke to find
herself on the dissecting- table at the City
Hospital, with blood streaming from wound
in her breast and a LOT Of startled young
physicians standing on either side of her.
Size was then sent forth from the hospital.
A Star-Sayings reporter, having learned
her whereabouts this morning, repaired to
1863 Chestnut street, where he was shown
the wounds and work of the lances.
Her breast was circled and seni-circed
with ghasly decorations, and her left size
was punctured She was weak and treln-
bling as she related to the reporter her ex-
perienee. :" don't remember how l got to
the disseeting-room of the hospital, but /
was almost frightened 10 death when |
woke up there and saw the doctors around
me. They had Just cut ne. See the scars"
said she, and unlOosing her wrapper she ex-
hibited her breast eireled and semi-clrcled
with those clean cuts which only the sur
geon's knife can make. There was a pune
ture in her side also. "The doctors did that
tn me, she continued. 81 suppose that is
what walked me up"
The physicians and surgeons at the City
Hospital deny Maggie Whelan's story en-
phatically. They say it is a lie made out of
whole clOth-that no attempt was ever made
to dissect her. To the representation that
the scars are there they boldly declare that
they cannot help that.
The reporter who saw the girl was much
impressed with her sincerity and truthful
ness, and could not believe she was telling a
fairy-tale-St IOuis Star-Savinps