Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-11-12
TO ATTEMPT A MIRACLE
Experts Will Try to Resuscitate
 an Electrocuted Criminal.
GOVERNOR FLOWER IS WILLING.

If the Next Victim or the Electric Chafr
 Is Brought Back to Life. His Sentence
 VIII Be Communications Electricity or
 the Surgeons Knife Cause Death9
 ALBANY, Nov. Ex-Governor Flower is willing to allow experts to make n test to ascertain whether man killed in the electrical chair can he resuscitated. He made this statement when his attention was called to the printed allegations that certain physicians would ask for such permission: II am perfectly willing to allow the experimerzs to be made If 1t is in my power under the law. I think it would be a good thing to have this long standing controversy settled at onco and forever
 Ever since the adoption of the electrical execution act by the state tho Nesting house people. whoss dynamos are used, have declared that electricity was not the cause of death. but that death was assur- cd by the holding of an autopsy directly after the body had been taken from the electrical chair. No less an authority than Nicol Testa, the famous electrician. con tended that he could bring back to life a man killed in an electrical chair, provided the attempt was made immediately after the execution
 MT. George Westinghouse has always asserted that the electrical death was a shame, and that n New York commission headed by Elbridge T. Gerry had added the autopsy clause to the law so as to make 1t certain that the man was dead. Within the past few weeks the agitation of the subject has again besome promi- nent, and an appeal is to be made to the governor to allow tho next man commit ted to death as n subject to be expert mented on. The governor says he will grant permission to do this.
 The attempt. fl made, will undoubted- ly create great excitement and intense in terest in the scientific world. It will also arouse curiosity among laymen because, if successful, it will bring to life a now man who cannot be again executed, hay ing once suffered the penalty of death. It will also prove that the state execution. CTS have been tho surgeons who have heidl tho autopsy rather than the state electri- clan.
 What Dr. Gibbons Thinks.
 SYRACUsE, Nov. 12.-Dr. P. I. Gib- boDs was shown the dispatch which quot ed Governor Flower stating that he would grant power if possihlessto attempt to resuscitatc the next person undergoing capital punishment. Dr Gibbons Is the man who first suggested that a man might be recovered from the condition made by electrocution and who performed a par tially successful operation on Murderer Taylor at Auburn prison.
 Dr. Gibbons said that he had been sat isfied that the matter could successfully be arranged. He said that the method of procedure would probably be for the governor to commute the prisoners son tonce to life imprisonment at n moment which will entail tho arrival of the pa. pers after the man has been elcctrocutcd. If the man returns to consciousness. the papers will act, " said the doctor ''If we are unsuccessful the papers will bo too late to save tho man life
 The doctor does not think that 1t will be necessary to change the electrocution laws, as he is of tho opinion that con. tinuous current. if applied in sufficient quantity. will cause death.
 Dr. Gibbons asserted that Charles F Wilson's refusal tO permit the experiment would not avail. as the state has the pow CT to dispose of tho bodies of clectrocuted | prisoners at will.