Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-01-14

4AAs ! 0st J6A0dk 40s-
When the negro policy dealer, Robert
w. Brown, who murdered his wife. Luz,
cinda, more than a year ago, was being
dragged to. the gallows in Moyamen-
sing prison yesterday, he shudderingly
| shrieked:
"My body will go to the dissecting
table-to the dissecting tablet"
His religious advisers admonished
him to think of his soul and not of his
body.
Pleading for delay for both soul and
body, the wre4chea stabber fell through
the fatal trap at the very moment when
he turned his head to implore the
keeper at his side for more time to
speak.
In this act the knot back Of his left
ear slipped to the base of the brain,
midway between the ears and con-
seriousness expired instantaneously at
the end of the rope.
There were those who waited, in
the interest of science, to give the MUIR
derer his wished-for opportunity to
complete his suspended speech. Not a
second was wasted after he was pro-
nounced dead. An ambulance, with
changing bell and the right of way,
few through the streets to the Jeffer-
son College. In ten minutes after he
was legally dead he was resting IN a
table in the physiological laboratory.
Around the table were three of the
most famous Psychologists of the sci
entifc world. They were Drs. JUDI
son Deland. Albert p Brubaker and
A.. Hewson. DR.. Deland had charge
| of the demonstration.
A Startling Question
| Could motion and life be restored to
that inanimate body?
For, an answer to this question the
! three scientists devoted their energies
and the of their skill and
| genius.
They had all taught that certain
nerve centres controlled motion and ac-
ton. In that eminent body, the Col
lege Of Physicians of Philadelphia, of
which the professors are members, the
theory has often been advanced that
there is no physiological necessity for
early death. Here was a subject dead
to all ordinary tests. Was he scientifi-
cally dead?
A sharp wire, charged with electric
ity, was applied to the various nerve
| centres of the body and brain. A SUI
| perstitious layman would have been
Mortified at the result. Brown raised
first his right arm and then his left.
His head moved. His mouth twitched
in a conVulsive grin. The chords OF
the neck swelled and the mouth opened
as if he would complete his interrupted
speech on the scaffold. The hands
clinched one after the other. A leg
was drawn up and then extended.
Increasingly the electric wire prodded
centre after centre in the nervous or
ganism. One would have thought that
a new Cagliostro was at work. At a
fresh touch from the -thaumatdrgist
plying the needle the body sat upright.
Every Sign of Life
Amazing enough was all this. There
was more. The eyes opened. The
heart beat. There seemed to be breath,
for the organs of respiration were agi-
tated.
Would he walk? Would he talk?
But, placed on the floor, the body fell
back limp. The lips opened without
sound. Science had demonstrated won
ders, but life could not be brought back
with motion. The soul had gone be-
yond returning breath. The electric
needle had made Brown do everything
but walk and talk.
In less than an hour the nerve CEN
tres themselves became dead. The
three scientists surrendered the effort
at resuscitatien. The limp body of the
murderer was removed to the anato-
micaI department On the top floor.
There DR.. Brubaker, who is the dem
onstrtor of physiology in the Jefferson
Medical College, and the author of text
books used in that institution, lectured
to the second and third year men on
Browns body. He explained to them
the. operations practiced upon the sub
ject. and the resulting phenomena
Brown had died in a religious hysteria.
By the slipping of the moose the neck
had not been broken. The brain had
been ~congested. The heart had been
remarkably strong, beating fifteen min
utes after drop fell, and artificial re-
suscitation afterward did not seem diff
cult.
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