The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-03-22
HE SWEATED GOLD.
Flour Gold Worth $27o Exudes From
a Miners Legs.

st. Joseph, Mo, March 22-Superin-
tendent Woodson of state lunatic asy-
lum No. 2 today received into the insti-
tuition for treatment a patient whose
case is without precedent in medical
annals.
Abe Boyle went to Alaska in the
summer of 1896, and was one of the first
to set out for the Klondike diggings.
which the nuggets and coarse gold had
to a considerable extent been carried
lower down the creek, While the wash
ing from above left the gravel heavily
impregnated with what is known as
flour gOld.'
This is the finest form taken on by
the yellow metal, which in that shape
manifests it's presence in the sands of
all the Rocky mountain plateaus, and
even in the waters of the Pacific ocean,
into which it is carried by the streams
heading westward from the great con-
tinental divide.
There is no known method of saving
flour gold, which will escape over the
quicksilver plates of a stamp mill in
spite of all efforts to capture it.
Boyle, during the summer of 1897, was
much of the time immersed to the waist
in the waters of the Yukon. Being in
the water constantly, his body seems to
have accomplished what no invention
of man has yet done, for through the
pores of the skin there was absorbed an
incredible quantity of flour gold.
He was seized with what he thought
was rheumatism, but kept on with his
work until his limbs became unInan-
ageable. 1t was as if OSsificatiOn, if not
petrificatiOn, had set in. This condition
gradually spread upward and he lost
his appetite and eventually became in
sane.
There being no physician in the camp
capable of handling the case, he was
sent back to the states in charge of
friend, who kept him for several
months at his old home in Lander,
WyO His condition did not improve,
and he was finally taken to Laramie,
Wyo., where DR.. William H. Harris,
one of the most noted practluoners IN
the west, thought he had located the
source of his trouble and resolved upon
an experiment to test the correctness OF
his theory.
In a Turkish bath house Boyle was
submitted for a week to treatment in
which the medicine administered con-
sisted largely of mercury. Then he was
given a thorough Turkish bath. His
chair in the sweating room was placed
in a shallow basin of zinc, so that the
perspiratiOn that poured down from
body would all be retained. He was al
terward rushed through the remaining
features of the bath and put to bed.
When he awoke he was found to have
entirely recovered from the hitherto I'M
accountable stiffness of his limbs, ms
flesh being soft and pliable as an in
fant's, though his mind was still al
fected.
The next thing done was TO examine
the contents of the zinc basin in the
sweating room. An assay of its con-
tents showed that the mercury, admin
istered in the form of pills, had passed
off through the open pores of the skin,
carrying with it the flour gold with
which Boyle's body had been saturated.
A. assay nv SUPERINTENDENT NJ. a
Grant of the Keystone mine showed
that the value of the flour gold drawn
from Boyle's body by means OF mer-
curry. appropriated $270
The effects of the treatment upon the
mind were something the physicians d d
not care to experiment with, so Boyle
was sent to asylum No. in this city;
He is now apparently in the pest OF
Woodson believes he will soon regain
his reason