Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1911-11-03

~ 81,
of the type that used to be hope ~
less. Four of the vertebrae -
| were smashed. 1t was worse
than broken back, for not one,
but four of the chain of bones
were crushed
1t was considered amazing
| that he should have survived
the fall Naturally. then, it was
/ still more amazing when he he-
gan to grow stronger after the
surgeons had done their best BY
a seeming miracle the grayish white
spinal cord was preserved Sensation
remained in his limbs. Fifteen pounds
of plaster of paris was made into a
| jacket for him. He was incased in
that and kept in the hospital seven or
| eight weeks He lived and was dis
charged, not sound, but as sound as
any man can hope to be who has fall
en- headlong from such a height and
/ broken four of the bones of the spinal
column. In this case death was baf-
| fed. Twenty years ago there would
have been funeral within decent
time after the fall
How long will we live, anyway,
when the world has been entirely
gone over with sterilizer? When
the germs have been hunted into their
final hiding places? When the infected
and diseased folk are kept carefully
separated from the remainder of hui
mainly during the term of their i'll
ness?
The United States army has started
| fooling death on the wholesale. Troop
| by troop, battery by battery and bat
| talon by battalion, the regular officers
and soldiers are being vaccinated
against that curse of the camps-ty-
| phoid Death has already been cheat
ed of dozens of lives by this action.
1t is hardly worth while to keep list
of the typhoid deaths in the army any
more. at least in those divisions that
| participated in the maneuvers on the
Mexican border last spring. There are
not enough worth, mentioning, and
| those who have died were those who
for some reason or other were not
given the vaccine.
| This one step alone will make wars
harder to fight. Fewer men will die
| in the fevered camps, and there will
be more for the bullets.
Death is being fooled by little bot
ties He is being cheated by little
tubes of thin glass, filed with yellow
ish, sirupy fluids, that are more pow
erful than anything else on the chem
lists shelves. They have within them
possibilities of life or of dissolution.
| They are so small that you could
carry dozens of them in a side pocket
of your coat and never feel their
weight or bulk. Possibilities of life
and death for whole city might be
placed In pocket case.
| There are 100000 dead bacteria
in this little vial" says the bacteriol-
ogist. Il can palm it, hide it, almost
lose it in my hand, and yet there is
more power in it than you might put
| in a years ordinary treatment"
That is the way they are fooling
death. 1t is done with single things
that are really complex in their work
ings. Into the veins a solution OF
dead tuberculosis germs is poured.
They do not kill their live brethren.
What happens is this: The body real
ICES that there is something poisonous
| floating around in the blood. A spe-
cial effort is made, and more of those
neversay-die warriors, the white cor
puscles, appear from somewhere and
set upon the dead and the living
germs Doth lets go unwillingly, but
the enraged white cells never cease
their warfare.
"Autogenous" is the name that they
have given this particular type of dis
ease relief 1t fights its own breth-
rem, turns against them and breaks
them. 1t is using like to fight like, :"
but the whole nature of the germ is
changed 1t is so new that death has
not become accustomed to being
fought in that way.
Men have been living with half their
brains gone. With the openings where
the nerves come through the skull
plugged with paraffin casts. in order
! n, a : = - . :