Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-04-04
4 MAN WITHOUT FEELING
Subject of a Clinic by DR.. Rus
sell Last Night.
NOTHING SEEMS TO HURT HIM
He Can Be Stabbed and Shot Without Pain
and Eats Glass With Relish-A
Wonder.

remarkable clinic last night at the Rus
sell Medico-Surgical institute. The re-
porter won't sleep for week, so great
was his wonderment. The subject of the
lecture was a perfect specimen of con-
genital annoesthsia, which in plain Eng
lish, is man without feeling. A man
who has never felt a pain of any de
scription. though his body has been
probed and cut in all sorts of ways. Drs.
r. NJ Russell and E. H. Walker invited
only a limited number to the lecture.
Among those present were DR.. ]. c.
Dozier, DR.. Jernigan, Dr. Bangston, Rev.
DR. B. ID. Gray, pastor Of the First Bap-
fist church; Rev. DIR. l.. S. Handley, pas
tor of the Central Presbyterian church;
DR.. Sol Palmer of the East Lake Athe-
neum, Hon. John M. Martin, Pho
tographer Peddinghause and others. The
lecture was purely complimentary.
The physiological demonstrations were
made on the living subject Leo Tardo,
who requested Drs. Russell and Walker
to make the scientific tests, first waving
legal recourse on the physicians-in the
event that death or injury should result
from the tests.
The following tests were then applied,
although one can hardly credit it with
out actually witnessing it, However, it
is literally true:
1. Insusceptibility to pain by piercing
through the forearm between the radius
and ulna with a surgical instrument
2. Over elasticity of the blood vessels
by piercing the tongue through with a
surgical instrument, without pain or
hemorrhage.
8. Natural antiseptic and antiphlogistic
properties of the blood by penetrating
the braehial artery with a rusty, unclean
instrument, without pain, hemorrhage,
swelling or sceptic infection.
4. Cystolic and diastolic movement of
the heart by thrusting needle into the
cardiac apex.
5. Lack of sympathetic connection be-
tween the body and brain by piercing
the biceps muscle of the arm, gastrocne-
MUS of the leg, etc, without pain.
6. Nervous harmony and organization
in the motor tracts by producing muscu-
lar contraction with the faradic currant
in arm and leg.
7. Total immunity from pain and alb
sence of sympathetic ganglia or nom
connection of peripheral nerves with the
sensorium by piercing large nerve cords
in the various plexuses.
8. Tendon movement by puncturing
same with needles, the free extremity of
which to move in unison with fiexion and
extension of the fingers.
8. Wonderful contractibility of the
blood vessels by entering the femoral
and other large arteries without sugse-
quent hemorrhage.
TO- Non-susceptibility of all tissues,
to injury and poison by transfixing the
neck with large rusty steel instrument
passing through the trachia par vag-
mum and all intervening substance and
then supporting weight of twenty-five
pounds on each extremity of the instru-
ment.
H. Exemption from the most deadly
venom by receiving the bite of a genuine
rattle snake (cfitalus horriduS).
In addition the subject maSttcated a
two-ounce glass bottle and swallowed the
fragments with the ease of a billy goat
A hollow tube was stuck through his
cheek. and he drank a cup of gasoline OIL
The heat in his stomach generated gas
He compressed his lips and lit the gas.
converting himself into a human gas
well. "Ah," said DR.. Gray, 1--WE have
struck oil in Birmingham. The X rays
are nothing as compared to this" The
subject was given eight volts from
galvanic battery without injury, al
though another volt would have burned
his hand. He Is the only living man, 1t
is said, who can drink a gallon of mean
whisky at one time without injury. Tardo
says whisky only exhilarates him slight
1y. Tardo is a Spaniard, but was born
on the Isle of Trinidad, in the Caribbean
sea. He Is 81 years old, has been married
eight years and has no children. He
earns handsome revenue from his Won
derful endowment by giving clinics be-
fore surgeons He has been before the
clinic classes of New York and other cit
des. He has only suffered one injury,
which resulted from the bite of a West
India cobra, or hooded adder, the most
venomous reptile known. This was on a
wager of $1,000 that the bite would prove
fatal. 1t didsnot, but the flesh for an inch
or SO around the spot where the snake
bit him stuffed away and fell off. He
made wager to go into rigor mortis for
six months recently, to be put in a coffin
and buried, and at the expiration of that
time to resume life. The Humane soci-
ETY. of New York prohibited the expert
ment, but Tado says that he will make
the wager in Alabama If he is allowed
to do so. Only those poisons and agents
which will destroy the physical organs.
he claims, will injure him. He offered to
permit the State Herald reporter to shoot
him through the fieshy part of the body
with IS Smith & Wesson revolver, but
the rep0fter was unwilling to do so.
The Dead Numbered Fifteen.
RoopevilIe XIV April 3-Furtber mar