The Topeka state journal., 1900-04-30
HANNA IN AN OVEN.
Ohio Senator Takes Heroic
Treatment For Gout Cure.

New York, April 3O.-Under the direc-
ton OF Doctor J. E. Clemens, one of
Washington'S well known physicians,
Senator Hanna has had his entire body,
except his head, literally baked in an
oven heated to a temperature OF 4S0 de-
grees- This is the temperature of ba-
ker's oven.
But the corpulent and gouty senator
has actually gone through this process
II times and feels much better for it
Three times each week. Mr.. Hanna
goes to his physicians Office to undergo
this baking treatment
It might be imagined that this is a
species Of torture similar to being burn
ed alive. which the politicians enemies
would doubtless rejoice to hear of. But
it doesn't act that way on Mr. Hanna.
He loses two pounds at each treatment
As he stin weighs over 200 pounds, how
ever, he can stand this fiesh-reducing
process some time longer TO advantage.
The process through which Doctor
Clemens puts his patient is an interest
ing one. The senator removes all his
clothes, and dons a bath robe. He then
slides himself as best he can. with the
assistance OF two men nurses, into what
looks like the oven Of a tremendous gas
stove.
It is such a stove as you might imag-
inc had been built to roast two dozen
big turkeys at once. Six and a half
feet long, with a rounded cylinder like
an oven two and a half feet in diane
ter, a set of gas burners underneath
and a series of chimneys on top for car
rying off the smoke-that is the appear
ance and size Of this man baking af-
fair
When the big Ohio man is actually
stuffed clean into the oven, with only
his head protruding at one end, the gas
| is turned on.
Puff goes the gas in the burners be-
! meath as the match is applied, and with
an explosive sound the furnace begins
to roar under the senator's porpoise-
| In readiness for the stewing that their
! patient is about to undergo, one nurse,
/ a woman, stands by his head-tor the
/ senator always insists upon having one
particular woman for this tender office
she applies cold cloths to his head as
! the neat from within turns his face
red and sets his temples to throbbing
| The fair nurse wipes his face as the
perspiration streams down it.
! Meanwhile another nurse watches the
| thermometer attached to the oven tC
| see that the patient is not baked toe
/ hard The mercury quickly jumps VI
| from 10o to $50 degrees, then to 200, II
| ZoO, and is allowed to crawl upward il
! the glass tube to $50 degrees.
What these temperatur mean may
I be better understood from the fact that
an egg placed in this temperature o.
$50 degrees would be cooked hard IL
five minutes. a leg Of lamb would b.
HCAA Aoe1StCN III 4AAlGcH 4H44utcSs anu
loaf of bread would be we'll baked il
exactly the time a patient is kept in thi
oven-thirty minutes.
If the patient were actually shovet
into this oven head and all he woult
be roasted alive in few minutes. Ru
by leaving the head outside, cool al
is inhaled. which tends to keep the in
ternal organs from being heated beyon,
endurance. Cloths wet with cold waite
are kept about the head, preventing tn
| brain from being inf7auaa1
The patient is even allowed to sil
from a glass of water during his fer
ordeal. One of the accompanying sen
sations is an intense thirst, caused b,
the excessive perspirati0n-
This cooking process is kept up 70
thirty minutes