Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-02-09
WHAT TO DO WITH OUR FELoNs.


DR.. C. S. Pyle of Canton, O., has a
unique and original idea as the DISPOSE
ton which should be made of felons,
who have been condemned to death. MI.
Pyle's idea may be deemed a little outre
and uncommon by some who are stick
lers for the presentations of mans ply
steal and mortal part from any unneces-
sary mutilation, ever though he be con-
demned to death by due process of law,
but the originality of the scheme pro-
posed by the worthy doctor renders it
worthy of comment. DR.. Pyle appeared
before the house committee on prison re.
form of the Ohio legislature the other
day, and laid down a plan, whereby
felons might be made to be of some use
to society before the infection of the
death penalty. Developments in tho art
of healing the advancement of the
medical science-so says the doctor,
would often be greatly aided, it disciples
of Aesculapius could experiment with
certain drugs, and by certain surgical
operations upon living human beings.
The great difficulty has always been to
secure human beings, who we're willing
to be operated upon. No matter how
kindly any one person may feel toward
his fellow men, there is always a sort of
instructive disinclination on his part to
submit himself 70 an unnecessary surgi-
cal operation, or to take a certain
amount of some newly discovered drug
or p%oison-in order that his sensations,
and the effect of the medicine upon him,
may be afterward applied, in the per-
forming of a necessary operation or the
giving of a necessary medicine, to the
great benefit of mankind. Briefly. man
objects to being experimental upon,
where the experiment is likely to result
in bis death, merely through a philan-
thropic desire to benefit his fellows. DIR.
Pyle suggests a way to obviate this diff
Guilty of procuring subjects for expiri-
ment and proposes to pass a law, appro-
priating condemned felons for the uses
of science. For instance, it it we're de-
sired to be ascertained just how much
OF the lungs of a ~consumptive could be
cut away in an urgent case, without ex-
treme danger to the patient, a condemn
I'D murderer could be chloroformed and
his thorax delved and examined into by
a corps of experienced surgeons. If a
certain amount of lung we're removed
and the felon died, it would at once be
evident that not so much lung could be
spared. The dead body of the felon
could be replaced on the disecting table
by a living one, and a little less lung cut
away. If the second felon died, a third
could be forthcoming, and if the supply
of felons held out, it could be discovered
just how much of mans lungs could be
spared with safety.
Again, should some aspiring physician
discover a poison, whose use in certain
cases of illness promised to be eficaci-
GUS, but the amount of the dose which
could be given with safety IN doubt, ex-
periments could be made upon felons,
on the same sliding scale as in the first
case, and the amount Of the dose estab-
lished with certainty. Other experiments
too numerous to mention could be
made in like fashion. Felons could be
made of benefit to society, by making
them the bases of experiments, whose
results would be beneficial to
the whole of mankind. And after the
experiment had been made, if it did not
prove fatal to the felon operated upon,
the sentence of the law could be carried
out by the chloroform route.
Such is the idea Of DR.. Pyle. It is not
probable it will eve develop into any
thing more definite than an idea. But
the doctor must certainly be given credit
for an extraordinary amount of enthusi-
asm in his profession.