Imperial Valley press., 1937-04-11
Hippocrates, Worlds First Doctor To Ad-
vance Theories For the Cure of Disease
and To Prolong Life.

"A /HAT happens to us after death
wv Does the individual, the personality, sur.
vlve after the physical body ceases to function?
This question is old as human curiosity, long
ing and faith 1t is still unsolved
To some = Death is an old man riding white
norse galloping down the highways of the uni
with outstretched, beckoning finger To
others dark angel with brooding, saffron
wings, lowering close when the life spark dis
cards it's mortal shell.
Several modern investigators believe the state
called death is no more than brief transition
from this world to another, from to
different phase of consciousness YET to many
more sincere and equally convinced laymen and
chemists (who relate their own experiences),
loss of consciousness brings complete blankness,
lie vital life force passing into outer darkness,
losing itself in some vast well or reservoir of
.nergy to await and unpredctable form.
Men have died and been revived by medical
science and have remembered nothing. To
these, the experience was neither frightening
glorious. Their sensations were negative and
from such cases we learn little except that
sciousness ceased when the heart faltered.
Were this the only evidence, no data for dis
cussion would exist There are, fortunately, eX-
Ceptional instances where men have died, have
been officially pronounced dead by competent
doctors; these men have been revived - and
haze remembered their experience.
me was the case of Charles Riley, young
medical student who took cyanide because
a girl turned him down He rushed to San
Francscos Emergency Hospital where DR.. }. c.
Geiger Director of Health, treated him with the
new preparation, methylene blue.
Five minutes after entering the hospital the
young was in a coma, and under usual
conditions would have been given up - since in
no similar case had recoveries been reported.
But research had given science new weapon to
fight cyanide poisoning, carbon monoxide poison
ing, and possibly leprosy - dye product known
as "Methylene Blue, U. S. p" and administered
''intravenousy, with the usual precautions, in
so c. C. doses"
Within Is minutes the patent had recovered.
His life had been saved, and equally as impor-
tant he was able to recall his experience. Be-
cause the was unique, he was asked to
write down his sensations.
"I took about Is grains of potassium cyanide
in 40 ounces of water. had no sensation except
a numbness which started at the extremities,
without pain, spreading. The sensation was
pleasant. There no pain, no muscular rigid
ity in going under But after the injection of
methylene blue l had distinct sensation of
floating,
To his friends he described his experience IN
more detail He had felt no sensation of blank
ness, recognized as death. Rather his feeling was
one of coming into the light into a new world
- from which he was called back by the prompt
injection.
"The case was curious from another angle,
DR. Geiger said. THE boy was very much in
love- which had caused him to try suicide. When
he had recovered from the shock, he found the
girl again - and with her another man. He
locked himself in his room, took the same poison
again and left note. addressed to me to the
effect that this time ned fooled me. When he
was found it was too, late to do anything"
A MOTHER man came back from death few
~ weeks ago Eugene Kratzer, who had
taken cyanide because he was tired of it all"
again a life was saved by quick treatment with
the same methylene blue, which fought chemi-
cal battle in his bloodstream and respiratory or
gans on the operating table
The cyanide had acted brake" on krat-
zers respiratory muscles - had so paralyzed the
red corpuscles in his blood that they could not
absorb oxygen. He was, in fact, sutfocating The
methylene blue quickly released the brake and
allowed him to breath again, when it ended the
PARALYSIS of the red blood cells.
II stole the poison Kratzer said. Il once