The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-03-26
SWEATED $27O IN GOLD.
Miner BoyIe's Legs Absorbed the
Metal From the YuIxon's Water.


Metal From the YuISon's Water.
From the New York Journal
st. Joseph, Mo, March disappointment
ent woodson, of State Lunatic Asylum
No. 2, to-day received into the institution
for treatment patient whose case is with
| out precendent in medical annals.
Abe Boyle went to Alaska in the sum
mer of 1896, and was one of the first to set
out for the Klondike diggings. His claim
was one Of the few from which the mug
gets and coarse gold had to considerable
extent been carried lower down the creek,
while the washing from above left the
gravel heavily impregnated with what is
know as flour gold.'' This is the finest
form taken on by the yellow metal, which
in that shape manffests its presence IN
the sands. of all the Rocky mountain pla-
| teaus and even in the waters of the Pa
| cifie Ocean, into which it is carried by the
| streams heading westward from The great
continental divide. There is no known
| method of saving -four gold, which will
| escape over the quicksilver plates of
| stamp mill in spite of all efforts to capture
| it,
| Bowie. during the summer of 1897, was
| In the waters of the Yukon. Being in the
| water constantly, his body seems to have
| accomplished what no invention of man
| has vet 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 unmanagea-
| BILE 1t was as If ossffication, If not pea
t.1I cot IN condition
| ually spread upward and he lost his APP
| petite and eventually became insane.
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 practition-
ers 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 sub
nitted for a week to treatment in which
the medicine administered consisted large
ly 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 his body would all
be retained. He was afterward 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 unaccountable stiffness
of his limbs, his flesh being soft and
pliable as an infantssthough is mind was
still affected,
The next thing done was to examine the
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, carrying with it
the flour gold with which Boyle's body
had been saturated. An assay by Supt.
NJ. A. Grant of the Keystone mine, show
ed that the value of the -four gold drawn
from Boyle's body by means of mercury
Appropriated $270.
The effects of the treatment upon the
mind were something the physicians did
not care 70 experiment with, so Boyle was
sent to Asylum No. 2 in this city. He Is
now apparently in the best of health,
physically, and Supt Woodson believes he
viii soon regain his reason.