Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-12-10
MILKAMEANSOF SUICIDE
DEADLY FORMS IN WHICH THE IN.
NocENT FLUID FIGURES.

Tho Lethal Effects OF MILK Are MGCn Un-
derrated-Usual Result From Eating
Cherries and Drinking Milk-Ice Cold
1t is a Very Harmful Beverage.
It is remarkable that so mild and in
trinsically harmless beverage as milk
should be so frequently chosen as
means of exit into the other world.
Yet at this season the lethal effects of
milk seem to be much underrated.
For example, we read in the dispatches
from San Andreas that "a prominent
young man Of Calaveras County died
here to-day as a result of eating cher
ries and drinking milk" This is
slight variant from the usual combin-
alton. Probably the most deadly is
pickles and milk. Strawberries and
milk are only mildly toxic; with young
and hardy stomachs they are often
partially digested; with older ones
they frequently cause nothing more
than eructative dyspepsia, or at worst
hives, nettle-rash, urticaria, or summer
complaint, therefore those who are
fond of this combination rarely abstain
In the face Of these comparatively
trifling ailments.
Next to pickles and milk, probably
the most deadly form in which the in
nocent fluid can be made to figure is
the cheap ice cream combination. De-
spite the toughness Of juvenile viscera,
milk in the ice cream form, if judi
ciously administered, has been known
to lay cut in intestinal kinks many
scores of children on Sunday-school
picnics. With their elders, the coInbi-
nation is not infrequently fatal. or
course it requires much care to make
milk so deadly. In fact, with careless
mixing this kind of ice cream may be
taken with comparative impunity, or
only slight illness. When it is pre-
pared with attention to the proper sep
tic and toxic conditions, however, milk
+, in this form may be looked upon as
practically certain death; it would be
Invaluable as an apparently innocent
means of hurrying off rich uncles, tar
dy spinster aunts and other rich per-
sons who llnger superfuous on life's
stage. In its most potent form, when
the innocent milk has become merely
n culture bed for billions of ice cream
ptomaines, the doctors call the mixture
'tyro-toxicon." This name is imposing
and scientific sounding, and doubtless
gives certain chastened satisfaction
to the mourners much more than
would plain milk.
To return to our original remark-it
is extraordinary what pains people
take to render deadly this harmless
beverage. Even If the COW be sound
they will expose the milk to all man
ner of Notwithstanding typhoid
germs-before they put it inside of
them. Even if it be perfectly pure
they take it at temperatures and I'm.
der conditions that are unwise, If not
dangerous. TO take glass of milk by
itself is sensible proceeding; to take
1t On top of a hearty meal composed CT
proteids, carbohydrates and hydro
carbons is most unwise; to take it with
acids is to WOO dyspepsia. Yet the lat
ter method is the one most preferred,
for cream is used as n mechanical lu.
bricant with all manner of acid fruits.
AS to temperature-in the summer
season people prefer it ice cold. and
some lunatics even put ice into it. II
they take it at the temperature of the
air, without accompanying solid food,
it is probably speedily absorbed with
out going through the complex pro-
cesses of gastric and hepatic digestion.
If, ON the other hand, it be taken ice
cold, it at once coagulates and the
stubborn casein in it sometimes re-
quires hours for digestion; this latter
is invariably the case when it is accom-
panied with solid food.
Many man and woman has died
through drinking freely of iced milk
on hot summers day. Adelaide Mel
son, the beautiful actress, went into a
Paris restaurant on the way to the
Bois de Boulogne one summer day
one of those broiling, blistering, steam
ing days of which in Paris they have
so many, and of which We hear so lit
tie. She ordered a glass of iced milk
she did not sip it-against the advice
of her companion, she drank it rapid
ly, and followed it with another. In a
few moments she was dead.
Eheu! She was fine actress and n
very beautiful woman. They show
you the room in which she died. They
even point out to you the lounge on
which she yielded up her last breath.
"Yes, monsieur. Yes, madame, VOLTA
that is the place where the beautiful
actress Anglais have die. She was
very beautiful, very gentle. Oh, yes.
1t was grand pity Oh, yes She
drink glass of the milk-cold, very
cold. Thank you, monsieur. Thank
you. a thousand times. Good day,
madame; good day. monsieur."-Argo-
naut.