The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-04-26
BOYLE'S FLOUR GOLD.
HIS LEGS ABSORBED THE METAL FROM
THE YukoN'S WATER.

Limhs Lost Their Poverty Mercsrial
Treatment and Turkish Bath Doctor
Extracted Gold From Boyie's Body
Worth ss7o-His Mind Was Anectsd.
Superintendent Woodson of Missouri
State Lunntio asylum, No. 2. recently re-
ceiyed into the institution for treatment
patient whose case is without prece-
dent in medical annals
Abe Boyle went to Alaska in the sum-
mer Of 1895 and was one of the first 10
set out for the Klondike diggings. His
claim was one Of the few from which
the nuggets and coarse gold had 20 .
considerable extent been carried lower
down the creek. while the washing
from above left the gravel heavily inn
pregnated with what is known as flour
gold" This is the finest form taken on
by the yellow metal, which in that
shape manifests its presence in the
sands Of all the Rocky mountain pla-
teaus and even In the waters of the Pa
cifio ocean. into which il is carried by
the streams heading westward from the
great continental 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 eff
forts to capture il.
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
60 have accomplished what no invention
of man has yet done, for through the
pores of the skin there was absorbed an
incredible quantity of -four gold.
He was seized with what he thought
was rheumatism, but kept ON with his
work until his limbs became unmanage-
able. 1t was as if ossification, if not
petrifaction, 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 United States in
charge of friend, who kept him for
several months at his old home in Ian.
der, Wy. His condition did not i'm
prove, and he was finally taken to Lara
mic, Wy, where DIR. William II.
Harris, one of the most noted practi.
TONERS in the west, thought he had To-
Gated the source of his trouble and re-
solved upon an experiment to test the
correctness of his theory.
In Turkish bath house Boyle was
submitted for week to a 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 shallow basin of zinc, so that the
perspiration that poured down from his
body would all be retained. He was
afterward rushed through the remain
ing features of the bath and put to bed.
When he awoke, he was found to have
entirely recovered from the hitherto un-
accountable stiffness of his limbs, his
flesh being soft and pliable as an in
fant's, though his mind was still affect
ed. The next thing done was to examine
che contents of the zinc basin in the
sweating room. An assay of its contents
showed that the mercury, administered
in the form of pills, had passed off
through the open pores of the skin, car
rying with it the flour gold with which
Boyle's body had been saturated. An
assay by Superintendent NJ. A. Grant
of the Keystone mine showed that the
value of the -four gold drawn from
Boyle's body by means of mercury ap-
proximated $270.
The effects of the treatment upon the
mind were something the physicians did
mn II
was sent to the asylum in st. Joseph,
Mo. He is now apparently in the best
of health physically, and Superintend-
emit Woodson believes be will soon re-
gain his reason. New York Journal.