CURING CANCER BY FREEZING WITH LIQUID AIRcancer, erysipelas, lupus, carbuncles and other diseases....
1
CURING CANCER BY FREEZING WITH LIQUID AIR REMARKABLE SURGICAL EXPERIMENTS BY DR. . A. CAMPBELL WHITE OF VANDERBILT CLINIC, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, IN WHICH LIQUID AIR ' HAS SUPERSEDED X-RAYS AS THE NEWEST MARVEL HOW IT IS APPLIED AND REASONS WHY IT EFFECTS SUCH WONDERFUL CURES. Copyrighted, 1899. »\u25a0* y !",v YORK, July 28.— Dr. A. /\{ Campbell White of Vanderbilt I \ clinic, Columbia University, is V preparing to announce the re- sults of a series of remarkable experiments which he has been making with liquid \u25a0for the treatment of cancer, erysipelas, lupus, carbuncles and other diseases. He has actually cured a number of severe cases of ery- sipelas, carbuncles and boils in one or two treatments. Abscesses and ulcers he has .aborted absolutely with a single freezing. Neuralgia and sciatica he has treated most successfully, in every case giving almost Instant and permanent relief. An obstinate case of lupus — lupus is a form of tuberculosis affecting the skin — was, perfectly cured after two treatments, although the patient had been under ordinary medical attend- ance for a long time, the disease resist- ing every- remedy. Uut the most signifi- cant ond important feature of all Dr. White's work has been his experiments With cancer. It is fortunate that these experi- ments, which promise to give liquid air the prominence in surgical and medical circles formerly held by Roentgen's X rays, should have been conducted un- der such auspices as those of the medi- cal start of the Vanderbilt clinic. Dr. White has been assisted by Dr. Thurs t<;. Dusk and his associates of ?evelt Hospital and by Dr. George M. "ox, the distinguished authority on skm diseases. Dr. White has been conducting spe- cial clinics twice a we for several months past. The liquid air is supplied by Charles E. Triplet - , the inventor of the process, which has made his name familiar. It reaches the clinic in a heat-insulated can containing about one gallon, the cost being hardly more than that of mineral water. It is a clear, bluish fluid which evaporates' rapidly on exposure to the heat of the surrounding atmosphere. Its tempera- ture is 312 degrees below zero. Last week Ivisited Dr. White at his clinic. Among the patients present one had a very severe case of cancer, one of erysipelas and one of blood tumors. The erysipelas patient was a young ne- gro woman who had come to the clinic three days before with her face ter- ribly swollen and disfigured. Dr. White had applied liquid air, doubtful as to its efficacy, an.l she had returned so much improved, the swelling being en- tirely gone, that the doctor actually did not know her. He gave her one final treatment, using a glass flask partly filled with the liquid air. This he rolled over her. face up and down, The surface of the flesh was frozen stiff and white as the glass passed over It, but it regained its former condition almost instantly. The temperature used was nearly 300 degrees colder than ice, perfectly dry cold, so cold, indeed, that 'hi doctor had difficulty in hand- ling the flask. And yet, when I asked the patient if It hurt her, she said that she only experienced a slight stinging sensation. , "It completely anesthetizes the part to which it is applied without freezing it solid," explained Dr. White; i have tried th air as a local anesthetic in a number of cases and it has always worked admirably. No blood flows during the operation -a very great ad- vantage to the surgeon in his work. I operated not long ago on a boy who had a blank cartridge wound in his hand. The boy was very nervous. I applied the liquid air rather too freely, and when I attempted to cut the hand with a scalpel it. was frozen so hard that the knife would not penetrate. Thirty seconds later, however, it thawed out and the operation was per, formed without pain, without heir.ON rhage and with no further freezing. When the boy returned a few days later the wound was in perfect condi- tion and it was soon healed up. That is only one of several similar cases." The cancer case which 1 saw was that cf a woman about 65 years old. The cancer was well advanced, having drawn down the corner of the patient's eye. She had tried all manner of treat- ment to reduce the growth, and as a last resort had come to Dr. White. His treatment was simplicity itself, He placed a little liquid air in a* wide bottom flask, the cork of which was pierced with two holes. Through one of these holes a glass tube reached to the bottom of the flask, the outer end being curved like a spout and th. tip drawn together until the aperture was not larger than a 'pencil point. On placing his thumb over the other hole in the cork the expanding air within the flask drove the liquid aid through the spout in a fine spray. This froze the surface of the cancer white, and if continued long enough in one spot would have cauterized it like a hot iron. "Our usual treatment," said Dr. White, "is by means of this spray, al- though we sometimes use a swab made of cotton and dipped in the air.' The swab is especially desirable when we wish to move tissue, such as a wart." In this particular case of cancer the patient had been treated only once, but she said that her face felt better* and Dr. White said he saw marked im- prover™ in the condition of the can- cerous tissue. The treatment for the most part, although the cancer was frozen solid, was not painful. Dr. White explained that while the flesh was frozen it was not frost bit- ten, and that it would recover its for- mer state. Only wet cold causes frost bite, whereas liquid air is absolutely dry. Dr. White tells of an experiment in which the ear of a live rabbit was completely frozen by placing it in liquid air. It was so stiff that a piece easily snapped off in the lingers with- out pain and without any flow of blood. In ten minutes circulation was re-estab- lished and the ear regained its former temperature and color. Dr. White has been making careful investigations to explain this power- fully curative action of liquid air. He has come to the conclusion, that the air does not kill the germs of the va- rious diseases: it is not an antiseptic, not a germicide. Although a tempera- ture of 160 degrees of heat destroys all germ 'life Dr. White has discovered from careful experiments in the New- York Department of Health Hospital that even the cold of liquid air, 312 degrees below zero, will not injure the germs if typhoid fever, anthrax and diphtheria. He submitted all of these germs, not only directly to the liquid air, but immersed them in the air in glass tubes. In every case the bacilli germinated when removed from the ef- fects of the intense cold. Dr. Huddles- ton tried liquid air on vaccine virus and found that it was affected by short exposures no more than the germs. Professor McKendrick has found that even the seeds of common plants like cucumbers, wheat, squash and so on will germinate almost as well as ever after being submitted to a cold of 300 degrees below zero. Lord Kelvin, in discussing the origin of life on this planet, once suggested that the first seeds may have been brought here through the cold of interstellar space in a meteor, although he didn't explain how the seeds could find their way Into the meteor in the first place. If, then, liquid air is not a germicide where does It gt-t its cu-ious and won- derful curative properties? "You must remember," explains Dr. White, "that liquid air is over 400 de- grees colder than the human t»ody. By, no other means than its application could we produce so sudden ana *?x- treme a shock to a certain part of the body without injury to the tissues, It takes only a moment to produce locally the most extreme cold and but a little more than that time for the part to re- gain its temperature, thus securing very great local stimulation. The in- voluntary fibers and the blood vessels are made to contract to the last degree, only to dilate forcibly on the removal of the spray. Cold also retards the activity of bacteria and this, with the stimulation of the ordinary curative agencies of the body, brings about a cure." In other words, liquid air is a great helper to nature, allowing nature to do he: uvn work in her own way. Dr. V/hlte thinks that medicine is just on the borders of a vast field of usefulness for liquid air. He thinks it may be used in the pulmonary diseases, in the reduction of fever and so on. although the subject has as yet received comparatively little attention. He inti- mates that In the near future a place will be arranged, probably in some hos- pital or clinic, with all the facilities for making and administering liquid air — a liquid air hospital, so that physicians can take their patients to it as they would to a private hospital and con- veniently apply the treatment. Two other physicians have been mak- ing somewhat extensive- experiments with liquid air supplied by Mr. Tripler. One of them. Dr. J. William Giles of Nyack, N. V., recently performed an operation for cancer in which he com- pletely froze away the cancerous tissue with most encouraging results. "The results of my cancer treat- ments," he said, "are full of promise. It is undoubtedly a fact that the applica- tion of liquid air will relieve the agonlz- ing pain of a cancer. This has been proven beyond a doubt. Its use will in many cases retard the advance of the disease, and I am confident that in cer- tain forms of cancer it is curative. It is quite remarkable that up to this time the use of liquid air has not been fol- lowed by any bad results." Dr. G. Fish Clark of Brooklyn be- lieves that for the extirpation of ma- llgnant growths of all kinds liquid air will eventually supersede the knife. __ VcWNp NEGRESS CURED OF ERYSIPELAS BY AN APPLICATION OF LIQUID AIR. NEW SUSPENSION BRIDGE ACROSS NIAGARA RIVER. The above photograph shows most clearly the recently constructed bridge over the Niagara River, which was opened on July 21, 11899, and Is but another proof of the remarkable skill of American engineers. The bridge- forms a link of a be3t=line electric road service about the Niagara gorge. The cable span Is J 04© feet ; suspended span, 800 feet ; width. 25 feet ;_ height above water, 65 feet. FRANK PILSBURY'S COUNTERFEIT. BT ALBERT R. COLLIER. I DON'T know what can have made us all take Frank Pilsbury for a fool, but I am sure we did so judge him. Some Of them, if I were to name them here, might arise in their indignation and effrontery and deny that they were ever mistaken about Pilsbury's mental caliber, but lt would be tne height of in- sincerity on their part. As for me, I free- ly confess that' I thought him »'' extreme- ly simple youth until these things hap- pened which I am going to tell. And y=t I do not know why we took him for a tool, unless It were- because of several out-ward Indications which, we observed, to wit: He parted' his hair in the middle and brushed It smooth on his forehead, which was not . high. He wore kid gloves all through the sum- mer, t. . He would talk earnestly with a girl tor an hour at a time, giving her points about how to trim a hat. . But that is the worst of these dudes; you never know quite for certain whetner they are fools clear through or only on the surface. -V-. y._ '-,*.*-,-* This mistake of ours was -set right about the close of the war with Spain, or a lit- tle before its close. And lt happened as follows: Late In- the spring of 1898. Jeannette Brennan was showing signals of distress and she let it be understood that the cause of her distress was Frank Pilsbury. It appeared that he was making love to her, chiefly by giving her a great deal of his society— with advice on millinery mat- ters—and also by presenting her with flowers, but not artificial millinery flow- ers, but. real ones. All this bored Jean- nette, and, as Jeannette was a good sort of girl we boys said that It ought to-be put a stop to. Besides, Jeannette was by public opinion assigned to be the fate of one Robinson, who was not at all a fool. like Pilsbury, and was a general favorite. About this time it was reported that Letitia Helmund had at last yielded to the persistency of Fred Stimms' wooing and had allowed him to call It an engagement. Then a |number of the boys enlisted for the war, Fred among them, Frank Pils- bury not. Everybody slapped Fred on the back and called him a good gellow. Everybody felt sorry for Letitia Helmund, because Fred had gone to Tampa and was being eaten by mosquitoes, and everybody felt sorry for Jeanette because Frank would not expose his perfect complexion to the ravages of these spiteful Insects. Lati-tca Hcdmund* was present one day when somebody said. "Can't we make Frank Pilsbury go off to the war? Can't we bring public opinion to bear on him?" Letitia sighed, thinking, no doubt, of poor Fred broiling and being eaten at Tampa. Then she said, in her gentle, mu- sical way. "If everybody wants poor Frank Pilsbury out of the way, why not get him to go to Tampa?" "Do you think he could be persuaded to go that far?" "I think he might,' said Letitia. Why was it that nobody had thought of this before? Frank Pilsbury was, by emi- nence, the squire of dames among us. Le- titla's plan was simply to go off herself to Tampa so as to be near poor, heroic Fred, and to make Frank go with her as escort. Jeannette thanked her with tears of grati- tude. Everybody called the plan an in- spiration of genius and also a huge joke. The Idea of making pretty Frank go to that abominable* den of mosquitoes and hold a sunshade over Lctitla's head so that Fred might make love to her inpeace between drills! And Frank consented like a lamb. And the two started together amid the cheers, and also the jeers, of all the girls and of all the boys who had not gone to the front before them. The next we heard of those three was by letter. First from Letitia to Jeannette, like this: "Frank Pilsbury has proved a devoted and. useful escort. I don't know what I should have . done without him. Fred laughs at him and wonders what he does with himself down 1 here, but I tell Fred that If it had not been for 'my little dude,' as he calls him. I could not be here. And It is a great thing to be near one's soldier boy, isn't it? So I have much to thank 'my little dude' f0r." ..'... '.-v* Then from Fred Stimms: "Letitia is up at the hotel, and I see her about every day. Frank Pilsbury is all right. He keeps out of the way when Letitia and I aTe together, which is what he's here for, I guess. We call him the chaperon. I don't know how he puts in his time, except It's loafing on the hotel veranda and about the Cuban settlement. They say he talks Spanish like a dago." Just before .the transports started for Cuba— the second, week in June— should turn up at home but Letitia! Everybody said she had done right not to stay till the' very' last. The parting would have been too severe a trial for her nerves. She did not bring back Frank Pilsbury with her. She seemed to have mislaid him somewhere and could not tell where ho bad sot to. About the end of July the news from Cuba was becoming very exciting— the news in the papers. Privately the follow- ing came from the United States camp near Santiago. It was dated "Daignon, June 27." It was a letter to a mutual friend of Stimms and myself. This is a true copy: "Dear Con: I am not well. A good many of us in camp here are .n the same fix. It Isn't the miss of my reg- ular n-eals that hurts me, it is the shock I have had. A lot of Garcla's soldiers met us on the beach when we landed. They were cheering for ios Americanos.' One of them, in a big straw hat and a little less ragged shirt and trousers than the others, with a revolver and a big machete, came forward and shook hands with me. Then he said, 'How is Letitia?' Then I saw that it was Frank Pilsbury. He sneaked off from Tampa three weeks ago with some sort of dispatches for the Cubans and they say he landed at Ma- tanzas and made his way right across the island. I couldn't believe it, but Gar- cia has photographs that he took on the way. Frankie has one of those little dinky 'Slap-bang' cameras with him. The Cubans are afraid of him and think he is the President's eldest son. The Span- lards took him for an English tourist. Now they are going to fit him out with decent clothes and send him to Washing- ton. How he did it all I don't know. I suppose it was his Spanish and getting so chummy with all those stiff dudes up at the hotel. I can't write any more. The shock seems to have given me a chill. I believe we shall be fighting to-morrow. Hope I may get killed. Yours, Fred Stimms." This letter set us all in a ferment of excitement. Everybody went and asked Letitia for information. Everybody felt that there must be more mystery behind this. Letitia smiled and said she had lost sight of Frank during the latter part of her stay at Tampa. She supposed the Government must have sent him on some special mission to Cuba, because he had traveled there before tbe war was ever, thought of and knew the country a little. I think we all felt somewhat annoyed. Jeanette unaccountably got downright angry and began treating Robinson, who had been obliged to stay at home on ac- count of his mother and sister, very un- kindly. ;\u25a0.-:. Poor Fred had one consolation, and that was that Frank was not at Santiago on the Ist of July—had. in fact, started home with his mysterious dispatches several days before that. Fred's friends also had the consolation that Fred, In spite of his own gloomy ambitions, came out of all that fighting without a scratch, though he did go to grass later on with a severe at- tack of fever. By the Fourth of July Frank came home a little browner and less plump than be- fore, it Is ! true, but with his hair still smooth and parted plumb In the middle. When we asked him to tell us about his mysterious goings on, he said he was sick and tired of all that: the Cubans, he said, were very dirty. Then he wandered off into a discussion of the metropolitan fash- lons in millinery. The next thing he did was to rent a small house. Then the local papers printed an au- thorized statement of the marriage of Frank Pilsbury and Miss Letitia Helmund at Tampa, Fla.. on the 22d day of May, 1808. with full particulars. When somebody asked him what he meant by breaking the heart of Jeanette Brennan, he answered: "Her heart, Is not broken. Ask Robinson. That was a russ, you know. Public opinion was against my marriage with Letitia, so we had -to elude public opinion. Ask Letitia." Letitia. being examined, said: "I never gave Mr. Stimms authority to say we were engaged. He chose to give it out, and it was not my business to contradict him. Yes, the Matanzas expedition was my idea. Still, Frankie isn't half such a fool as he looks." Fred came home an invalid long before the other soldier boys. For three 'weeks we all conspired to keep the news from him, so that the shock might not kill him. When he heard the whole truth he packed up and went to the Pacific coast. THE SUNDAY CALL. 28
Transcript of CURING CANCER BY FREEZING WITH LIQUID AIRcancer, erysipelas, lupus, carbuncles and other diseases....
CURING CANCER BY FREEZING WITH LIQUID AIRREMARKABLE SURGICAL EXPERIMENTS BY DR.. A. CAMPBELL WHITE OF VANDERBILT CLINIC,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, IN WHICH LIQUID AIR'
HAS SUPERSEDED X-RAYS AS THE NEWESTMARVEL HOW IT IS APPLIED AND REASONSWHY IT EFFECTS SUCH WONDERFUL CURES.
Copyrighted, 1899.
»\u25a0* y!",v YORK, July 28.— Dr. A./\{ Campbell White of VanderbiltI \ clinic, Columbia University, isV preparing to announce the re-
sults of a series of remarkableexperiments which he has been making
with liquid \u25a0for the treatment ofcancer, erysipelas, lupus, carbunclesand other diseases. He has actuallycured a number of severe cases of ery-sipelas, carbuncles and boils in one ortwo treatments. Abscesses and ulcershe has .aborted absolutely with a singlefreezing. Neuralgia and sciatica he hastreated most successfully, in every casegiving almost Instant and permanent
relief. An obstinate case of lupus—
lupus is a form of tuberculosis affectingthe skin
— was, perfectly cured after twotreatments, although the patient hadbeen under ordinary medical attend-ance for a long time, the disease resist-ing every- remedy. Uut the most signifi-
cant ond important feature of all Dr.White's work has been his experimentsWith cancer.
It is fortunate that these experi-ments, which promise to give liquid airthe prominence in surgical and medicalcircles formerly held by Roentgen's Xrays, should have been conducted un-der such auspices as those of the medi-cal start of the Vanderbilt clinic. Dr.White has been assisted by Dr. Thurs
t<;. Dusk and his associates of?evelt Hospital and by Dr. George
M. "ox, the distinguished authority onskm diseases.
Dr. White has been conducting spe-cial clinics twice a we for severalmonths past. The liquid air is suppliedby Charles E. Triplet
-, the inventor of
the process, which has made his namefamiliar. It reaches the clinic in aheat-insulated can containing aboutone gallon, the cost being hardly morethan that of mineral water. It is aclear, bluish fluid which evaporates'rapidly on exposure to the heat of thesurrounding atmosphere. Its tempera-ture is 312 degrees below zero.
Last week Ivisited Dr. White at hisclinic. Among the patients present onehad a very severe case of cancer, oneof erysipelas and one of blood tumors.The erysipelas patient was a young ne-gro woman who had come to the clinicthree days before with her face ter-riblyswollen and disfigured. Dr. Whitehad applied liquid air, doubtful as toits efficacy, an.l she had returned somuch improved, the swelling being en-
tirely gone, that the doctor actuallydid not know her. He gave her onefinal treatment, using a glass flaskpartly filled with the liquid air. This
he rolled over her. face up and down,
The surface of the flesh was frozenstiff and white as the glass passed overIt, but it regained its former conditionalmost instantly. The temperatureused was nearly 300 degrees colder thanice, perfectly dry cold, so cold, indeed,
that 'hi doctor had difficulty in hand-ling the flask. And yet, when Iaskedthe patient if It hurt her, she said thatshe only experienced a slight stinging
sensation. ,
"It completely anesthetizes the part
to which it is applied without freezing
it solid," explained Dr. White; ihavetried th air as a local anesthetic ina number of cases and it has always
worked admirably. No blood flowsduring the operation -a very great ad-vantage to the surgeon in his work. Ioperated not long ago on a boy who
had a blank cartridge wound in hishand. The boy was very nervous. Iapplied the liquidair rather too freely,
and when Iattempted to cut the hand
with a scalpel it.was frozen so hardthat the knife would not penetrate.Thirty seconds later, however, it
thawed out and the operation was per,formed without pain, without heir.ONrhage and with no further freezing.
When the boy returned a few days
later the wound was in perfect condi-tion and it was soon healed up. Thatis only one of several similar cases."
The cancer case which 1 saw wasthat cf a woman about 65 years old.The cancer was well advanced, havingdrawn down the corner of the patient'seye. She had tried all manner of treat-ment to reduce the growth, and asa last resort had come to Dr. White.His treatment was simplicity itself,
He placed a little liquid air in a*widebottom flask, the cork of which waspierced with two holes. Through oneof these holes a glass tube reached tothe bottom of the flask, the outer endbeing curved like a spout and th. tip
drawn together until the aperture wasnot larger than a 'pencil point. Onplacing his thumb over the other holein the cork the expanding air withinthe flask drove the liquid aid through
the spout in a fine spray. This frozethe surface of the cancer white, and ifcontinued long enough in one spotwould have cauterized it like a hotiron.
"Our usual treatment," said Dr.
White, "is by means of this spray, al-though we sometimes use a swab madeof cotton and dipped in the air.' Theswab is especially desirable when wewish to move tissue, such as a wart."
In this particular case of cancer thepatient had been treated only once, butshe said that her face felt better* andDr. White said he saw marked im-prover™ in the condition of the can-cerous tissue. The treatment for themost part, although the cancer was
frozen solid, was not painful.Dr. White explained that while the
flesh was frozen it was not frost bit-ten, and that it would recover its for-mer state. Only wet cold causes frostbite, whereas liquid air is absolutely
dry. Dr. White tells of an experiment
in which the ear of a live rabbit wascompletely frozen by placing it inliquidair. It was so stiff that a pieceeasily snapped off in the lingers with-out pain and without any flow of blood.In ten minutes circulation was re-estab-
lished and the ear regained its formertemperature and color.
Dr. White has been making carefulinvestigations to explain this power-fully curative action of liquid air. Hehas come to the conclusion, that theair does not kill the germs of the va-rious diseases: it is not an antiseptic,
not a germicide. Although a tempera-
ture of 160 degrees of heat destroys allgerm 'life Dr. White has discoveredfrom careful experiments in the New-York Department of Health Hospital
that even the cold of liquid air, 312degrees below zero, will not injure thegerms if typhoid fever, anthrax anddiphtheria. He submitted all of thesegerms, not only directly to the liquidair, but immersed them in the air inglass tubes. In every case the bacilligerminated when removed from the ef-fects of the intense cold. Dr. Huddles-ton tried liquidair on vaccine virusand found that it was affected by
short exposures no more than thegerms. Professor McKendrick hasfound that even the seeds of commonplants like cucumbers, wheat, squash
and so on will germinate almost aswell as ever after being submitted toa cold of 300 degrees below zero. LordKelvin, in discussing the origin of lifeon this planet, once suggested that thefirst seeds may have been brought herethrough the cold of interstellar spacein a meteor, although he didn't explain
how the seeds could find their way
Into the meteor in the first place.If,then, liquid air is not a germicide
where does It gt-t its cu-ious and won-derful curative properties?
"You must remember," explains Dr.White, "that liquid air is over 400 de-grees colder than the human t»ody. By,no other means than its applicationcould we produce so sudden ana *?x-
treme a shock to a certain part of thebody without injury to the tissues, Ittakes onlya moment to produce locally
the most extreme cold and but a littlemore than that time for the part to re-gain its temperature, thus securingvery great local stimulation. The in-voluntary fibers and the blood vesselsare made to contract to the last degree,
only to dilate forcibly on the removalof the spray. Cold also retards theactivity of bacteria and this, with thestimulation of the ordinary curativeagencies of the body, brings about acure."
In other words, liquidair is a greathelper to nature, allowing nature to dohe: uvn work in her own way.
Dr. V/hlte thinks that medicine isjust on the borders of a vast field ofusefulness for liquidair. He thinks itmay be used in the pulmonary diseases,
in the reduction of fever and so on.although the subject has as yet receivedcomparatively little attention. He inti-
mates that In the near future a place
willbe arranged, probably in some hos-pital or clinic, with all the facilities formaking and administering liquid air
—a liquidair hospital, so that physicianscan take their patients to it as they
would to a private hospital and con-veniently apply the treatment.
Two other physicians have been mak-ing somewhat extensive- experiments
with liquid air supplied by Mr. Tripler.
One of them. Dr. J. William Giles ofNyack, N. V., recently performed anoperation for cancer in which he com-pletely froze away the cancerous tissuewith most encouraging results.
"The results of my cancer treat-ments," he said, "are fullof promise. Itis undoubtedly a fact that the applica-
tion of liquidair willrelieve the agonlz-ing pain of a cancer. This has beenproven beyond a doubt. Its use will inmany cases retard the advance of thedisease, and Iam confident that in cer-tain forms of cancer it is curative. Itisquite remarkable that up to this timethe use of liquid air has not been fol-lowed by any bad results."
Dr. G. Fish Clark of Brooklyn be-lieves that for the extirpation of ma-llgnant growths of all kinds liquid airwill eventually supersede the knife.
__ VcWNp NEGRESS CURED OF ERYSIPELAS BY AN APPLICATION OF LIQUID AIR.
NEW SUSPENSION BRIDGE ACROSSNIAGARA RIVER.
The above photograph shows most clearly the recently constructed bridge
over the Niagara River, which was opened on July 21, 11899, and Is but anotherproof of the remarkable skillof American engineers. The bridge- forms a linkof a be3t=line electric road service about the Niagara gorge. The cable span Is
J 04© feet ;suspended span, 800 feet;width. 25 feet ;_ height above water, 65 feet.
FRANK PILSBURY'S COUNTERFEIT.BT ALBERT R. COLLIER.
IDON'T know what can have made usall take Frank Pilsbury for a fool, butIam sure we did so judge him. SomeOf them, ifIwere to name them here,
might arise in their indignation and
effrontery and deny that they were
ever mistaken about Pilsbury's mentalcaliber, but lt would be tne height of in-
sincerity on their part. As for me,Ifree-
ly confess that'Ithought him »'' extreme-ly simple youth until these things hap-
pened which Iam going to tell. And y=t
Ido not know why we took him for atool, unless It were- because of severalout-ward Indications which, we observed,
to wit:He parted' his hair in the middle and
brushed It smooth on his forehead, which
was not .high.
He wore kid gloves all through the sum-mer, t. .
He would talk earnestly with a girl tor
an hour at a time, giving her points
about how to trim a hat. .But that is the worst of these dudes;
you never know quite for certain whetnerthey are fools clear through or only onthe surface. -V-. y._ '-,*.*-,-*
This mistake of ours was -set right aboutthe close of the war with Spain, or a lit-tle before its close. And lt happened asfollows:
Late In- the spring of 1898. JeannetteBrennan was showing signals of distressand she let it be understood that thecause of her distress was Frank Pilsbury.
Itappeared that he was making love toher, chiefly by givingher a great deal ofhis society— with advice on millinery mat-ters—and also by presenting her withflowers, but not artificial millinery flow-ers, but. real ones. All this bored Jean-nette, and, as Jeannette was a good sortof girl we boys said that It ought to-beput a stop to. Besides, Jeannette was bypublic opinion assigned to be the fate ofone Robinson, who was not at all a fool.like Pilsbury, and was a general favorite.
About this time it was reported thatLetitia Helmund had at last yielded to thepersistency of Fred Stimms' wooing andhad allowed him to call It an engagement.Then a|number of the boys enlisted forthe war, Fred among them, Frank Pils-bury not. Everybody slapped Fred onthe back and called him a good gellow.Everybody felt sorry for Letitia Helmund,because Fred had gone to Tampa and wasbeing eaten by mosquitoes, and everybodyfelt sorry for Jeanette because Frankwould not expose his perfect complexionto the ravages of these spiteful Insects.
Lati-tca Hcdmund* was present one day
when somebody said. "Can't we makeFrank Pilsbury go off to the war? Can'twe bring publicopinion to bear on him?"
Letitia sighed, thinking, no doubt, ofpoor Fred broiling and being eaten atTampa. Then she said, in her gentle, mu-sical way. "If everybody wants poorFrank Pilsbury out of the way, why notget him to go to Tampa?"
"Do you think he could be persuaded togo that far?""Ithink he might,' said Letitia.Why was it that nobody had thought of
this before? Frank Pilsbury was, by emi-nence, the squire of dames among us. Le-titla's plan was simply to go off herself toTampa so as to be near poor, heroic Fred,and to make Frank go with her as escort.Jeannette thanked her with tears of grati-tude. Everybody called the plan an in-spiration of genius and also a huge joke.The Idea of making pretty Frank go to
that abominable* den of mosquitoes andhold a sunshade over Lctitla's head sothat Fred might make love to her inpeacebetween drills!
And Frank consented like a lamb. Andthe two started together amid the cheers,
and also the jeers, of all the girls and ofall the boys who had not gone to the frontbefore them.
The next we heard of those three was byletter. First from Letitia to Jeannette,like this:
"Frank Pilsbury has proved a devotedand. useful escort. Idon't know what Ishould have .done without him. Fredlaughs at him and wonders what he doeswith himself down 1 here, but Itell Fredthat Ifit had not been for 'my little dude,'as he calls him. Icould not be here. AndItis a great thing to be near one's soldierboy, isn't it? So Ihave much to thank'my little dude' f0r."..'... '.-v*
Then from Fred Stimms:"Letitia is up at the hotel, and Isee
her about every day. Frank Pilsbury isall right. He keeps out of the way whenLetitia and IaTe together, whichis whathe's here for, Iguess. We call him thechaperon. Idon't know how he puts inhis time, except It's loafing on the hotelveranda and about the Cuban settlement.They say he talks Spanish like a dago."
Just before .the transports started forCuba— the second, week in June—should turn up at home but Letitia!
Everybody said she had done right notto stay till the' very' last. The partingwould have been too severe a trial for hernerves. She did not bring back FrankPilsbury with her. She seemed to havemislaid him somewhere and could not tellwhere ho bad sot to.
About the end of July the news fromCuba was becoming very exciting— thenews in the papers. Privately the follow-ing came from the United States campnear Santiago. It was dated "Daignon,June 27." It was a letter to a mutualfriend of Stimms and myself. This is atrue copy: "Dear Con: Iam not well.A good many of us in camp here are .nthe same fix. ItIsn't the miss of my reg-ular n-eals that hurts me, it is the shockIhave had. A lot of Garcla's soldiersmet us on the beach when we landed.They were cheering for ios Americanos.'One of them, in a big straw hat and alittle less ragged shirt and trousers thanthe others, with a revolver and a bigmachete, came forward and shook handswith me. Then he said, 'How is Letitia?'Then Isaw that it was Frank Pilsbury.He sneaked off from Tampa three weeksago with some sort of dispatches for theCubans and they say he landed at Ma-tanzas and made his way right acrossthe island. Icouldn't believe it,but Gar-cia has photographs that he took on theway. Frankie has one of those littledinky 'Slap-bang' cameras with him. TheCubans are afraid of him and think heis the President's eldest son. The Span-lards took him for an English tourist.Now they are going to fit him out withdecent clothes and send him to Washing-ton. How he did it all Idon't know. Isuppose it was his Spanish and getting sochummy with all those stiff dudes up atthe hotel. Ican't write any more. Theshock seems to have given me a chill.Ibelieve we shall be fighting to-morrow.Hope Imay get killed. Yours, FredStimms."
This letter set us all in a ferment ofexcitement. Everybody went and askedLetitia for information. Everybody feltthat there must be more mystery behindthis. Letitia smiled and said she had lostsight of Frank during the latter part ofher stay at Tampa. She supposed theGovernment must have sent him on somespecial mission to Cuba, because he hadtraveled there before tbe war was ever,thought of and knew the country a little.Ithink we all felt somewhat annoyed.
Jeanette unaccountably got downrightangry and began treating Robinson, whohad been obliged to stay at home on ac-count of his mother and sister, very un-kindly. ;\u25a0.-:.
Poor Fred had one consolation, and thatwas that Frank was not at Santiago onthe Ist of July—had. in fact, started homewith his mysterious dispatches severaldays before that. Fred's friends also hadthe consolation that Fred, In spite of hisown gloomy ambitions, came out of allthat fighting without a scratch, though hedid go to grass later on with a severe at-tack of fever.
By the Fourth of July Frank came homea little browner and less plump than be-fore, it Is!true, but with his hair still
smooth and parted plumb In the middle.When we asked him to tell us about hismysterious goings on, he said he was sickand tired of all that: the Cubans, he said,were very dirty. Then he wandered offinto a discussion of the metropolitan fash-lons in millinery.
The next thing he did was to rent asmall house.
Then the local papers printed an au-thorized statement of the marriage ofFrank Pilsbury and Miss Letitia Helmundat Tampa, Fla.. on the 22d day of May,1808. with full particulars.
When somebody asked him what hemeant by breaking the heart of JeanetteBrennan, he answered: "Her heart, Is notbroken. Ask Robinson. That was a russ,you know. Public opinion was against mymarriage with Letitia, so we had -to eludepublic opinion. Ask Letitia."
Letitia. being examined, said: "Inevergave Mr. Stimms authority to say wewere engaged. He chose to give it out,and it was not my business to contradicthim. Yes, the Matanzas expedition wasmy idea. Still, Frankie isn't half such afool as he looks."
Fred came home an invalid long beforethe other soldier boys. For three 'weekswe all conspired to keep the news fromhim, so that the shock might not killhim.When he heard the whole truth he packedup and went to the Pacific coast.
THE SUNDAY CALL.28
