St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1895-10-05
FOR FRENCH DOCTORS.
The Law Permits Experiments With Me
Condemned to Death.

The Law Permits Experiments With Men
Condemned tn Death.
'.Over in France" said a gentleman
recently from Europe. 1.-The criminal
procedure permits people condemned
to death or to long terms of servitude
in the penitentiaries to give them
selves mp to scientists for the purposes
of experiment While recently in
Paris was told by a medical friend OF
three convicts who submitted them
selves to the diet prescribed by ,
French physician. They were all con.
demned to death, and the tests he
made were meant TO determine how
long human life might be sustained on
special and limited diet. To one he
gave nothing but coffee, to the second
chocolate. while the third received
simply tea. The chocolate man lived
only few weeks. and died from a gen
eral degeneration of the tissues. The
coffee man was longer in meeting his
end, and expired more from nervous
disorganizatiOn than from actual want
of nournishment. The tea man was de-
scribed as living about a year with moth
ing to sustain life bnt q decoctiOn OF
black tea His skin became almost trans
parent. while the patient himself fell
away in Gesh, until he was but little
better than . skeleton. He drifted
into the grave on tide Of tea rather
than died.
"Some few months ago." the gentle
man went on to say, "a medical man,
who was also much of an electrician.
made an experiment on himself, which
is of some interest. lie had theory
that the term mother earth had a
better basis in fact as q statement
than mere attempt to compliment
the earth. His notion was that every
day and every hour in the day we
sucked. unnoticed, nourishment from
the earth in the way of stores of elec-
tricity. and it was his opinion that il
one were cut OF from this electrical
food supply he wouldn't last long.
To the end that he might put his
theory to the test. he resolved to in
sulate himself as much as possible,
and had made pair of shoes with
soles of plate glass. Then he arranged
SO that every article with which he
came actually in contact was also in.
sulatcd-his dinner table was raised
from the floor on glass supports; SO also
was his bed. In fact. he took every
care to cut himself of from all possi-
BILE earth currents of electricity. He
maintained this insulation only five
days before he became aware of . dis
tinct change in his bodily health. lie
was languid. Indifferent, careless.
what you might term lazy, and, to put
it in his own words, felt as il his
steam had all run down. Indeed. he
felt SO disagreeable that at the end OF
five days he declined to carry the ex-
pertinent any further, and pulled on
his Cinderella boots and placed him
sels in active communication with tho
earth again.
''In two days he felt completely re-
stored to his old self. and gave it as
his opinion that, cut of from the
natural contact with the earth, in.
sulated as it were, he would have died
in less than q month. He expects t.
resume his experiments as soon as lie
can get the French government to
hand over to him some convict. under
death sentence, on whom to make this
anti-clectrical test.-Washington Star