St. Paul daily globe., 1892-01-27
Northwestern Retail Lumber
men Begin Their Annual
Convention.
Several Interesting Bits Of
Business Before the Board
Of Education.
Silver Discussed by Single
TaXerS--General News
Of a Day. I

II,
tor" in the district court in the role OF
defendant i'll a criminal prosecution.
The coroner's jury that considered the
death of AdOlphuS ID. Blair yesterday
returned verdict which will be called
TO the attention of the grand jury when
it meets next Monday. 1t is expected
that an earnest effort Will be made to in
diet the doctor" on the charge of man
slaughter i'll the second degree at least.
All the evidence adduced before the
inquest yesterday went to show that
Blair had been as we'll as he had been at
any time these two years just before he
took the treatment of the needle doctor.
He was paralyzed year ago, and had
been unable to work since, but he had
recovered sufficiently to be able to walk
without crutch or cane. He had
even worked little. AS soon as he
began TO submit to the treatment of the
needle doctor he took to his bed and
never got up again for any length of
time.
The relatives of the dead man, a
brother who had taken the same treat
| ment, and Girrbach himself described
the method of treatment. The first
thing he does is to rub the patient ION
what part of the body seems to make
llbLiC IL ID
done in the vicinity of the affected
organs) with brush made of steel wires
surrounded by row of briStleS. 1t has
a magnet in the back of it, and is called
magnetic brush. When the skin has
approached a fiery hue through the
application of this curry comb, the
needle arrangement IS applied and the
skin is filled with punctureS. Girrbach
says the punctuIes are artificial pores,
to take the place of the natural pores,
which may be closed. He does not eX-
plain how they work as pores, inaSmuch
as the natural pores of the body are in
the skin, while the punctures from the
needles go deeper than the skin. Then
into these punctures he rubs an ointment.
That done the patient is Swathed in cot
ton and left until the doctor comes
again. AT the next visit the scab-coy-
cred punctureS are again gone over by
the steel wire brush and torn open.
More ointment is rubbed. If the patient
lives, the treatment cures him; if he
dies it was because he did not follow the
directions of the doctor" Girrbach
admitted that he had used the brush Oo
more than one patient in succession
without ever subjectlng it To any cleans
ing process. He would not reveal his
method Of cleaning the brush. The
tiOn, ,Girrbach says. but by peculiar syS-
TEN. They are prodded into piece of fat
pork. He never uses strong antiSeptics.
Glrrbach maintained under a fire of
questions that his treatment is infallible
III cases Of cancer of the stomach, heart
disease, brain fever, stone in the blad-
der, Bright's disease, tumOrs, IN
practically every i'll that flesh
is heir to. And. he admitted,
he applies about the same sort of treat
ment to all these different diseases. He
could not tell the jury the name of his
system so that they could understand it,
nor would he define it. Every time he
was closely pressed on the line of his
knowledge Of medicine, or anything eX-
act in connection with his practice, he
availed himself of his privilege as the
investigated party, and declined to an
SWer. He had no diploma. His attOr-
ney had said it was not necessary for
him to get one, and he could not see the
use OF going to the expense of getting it
ii not needed.
The doctors who were examined were
j. Clark Stewart, professor of pathology
in the state university; DR.. Weston,
assistant city physician, who had treated
Blair on several occasions; DR.. p NJ.
Holl, the assistant city physician, who
was the last doctor to look into the case:
Deputy Coroner H. E. Cary, who as
sisted Drs. Weston and Stewart at the
post-mortem examination. All agreed
that Blair died OF heart failure, but the
heart failure was produced by the cry
sipelas in the left leg. All were sat.
ished that the eryspelas had been
communicated to the leg through
the Girrbach treatment. 1t had been
shown that erysipelas was the cause of
death, primarily; that the erySipelas
had set in after the beginning of the
Girrbach treatment; that Girrbach did
not clean the instruments with which he
operated; that he used the same brush
on different patients without ever clean
ing it; that disease could easily be car
ried in the brush or Oh the needles from
one person to another, Girrbach being
so careless about cleaning them. With
this evidence before them the jury de-
liberated about three minutes and rem
dered the following verdict:
That Adolphus ID. Blair came to his
death by erysipelas, said erysipelas
being caused by irritation and abrasion
of the skin, due to the use of inStru-
ments in the hands of Gottlieb T. Girr-
bach"
A determined effort will be made to
stop the operations of Girrbach. While
before the jury he frequently spoke as
If he expected to be brought into court
and mentioned incidentally the stacks of
testimonials he could get from persons
who had been given up by other doctors
n RI rIT hnI hnn l.. l..