The Oregon daily journal., September 13, 1908, Page 36, Image 36

THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND. SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 13 1903 :
Victims of Ether and
fcgies FoHow-
r trir .
mg I nose or Morphine
and Cosame
yCIENCE, that new, omnipotent mother
if f humanity, is signalizing her con
tinual steps of progress by creating
new and terrible vices.
Out of its simple, primitive knowledge,
efore almost omniscient science was able to
bring surcease of pain to body and often to
mind, humanity had to rest content with its
primitive, simple vicesr-4ts comparatively in-'
nocuous tobacco its slowly clogging gluttonies
and its debauches in alcohol. Man's ignorance
was his safeguard.
fifes.,-;. mfliw A'wmw ' t . tfs&s. $ wlP psks&fd
lm7m 5db - ' f j pi 1 III
Alig3 MS I I ' r, M - v ' 1 g ; ! II feif
the sensations experienced by the English oxygen
Send when, with all London choking In Us heavy air,
even though its infamously famous fog be absent, he
turns the tap of his waiting cylinder and allows a
stream of thrltllng oione to flow, drawing it ipto his
lungs with deep, pulse-raising Inhalations.
"I had an oxygen orgy today," writes one man who
tried it "I had fifteen gallons. I feel more inclined to
"Exhilaration followed aerial champagne. life
ethereal, energizing the vital principle. My ears sang.
As I Inhaled more, I felt as though I were hanging
downward over a cliff.. The protesting blood was
Sulsing in my arteries. Ideas swarmed, but it was
ard to seize them; I swayed as I rose to my feet."
The man was oxygen drunk. It took ten minutes
to do it, while his pulse leaped from 74 beats to 90,
He stayed drunk for an hour, and then he appeared
to be as he was before.
Inhalation of the osone form of oxygen in large
quantities inflames the mucous membranes, a plain
evidence of the consuming Are. There is often a head
ache afterward, seemingly no heavier a penalty than
the common drunkard pays for his aloohol.
But the truly appalling results come more Insid
iously, and much more punltively. If ever the wages
ct tin can be death, this sin entails the extreme pen
alty. The heart, continually stimulated with an ex
cess Of oxygen, hurls the blood through the veins' at
, , -t.-.-wresu man to write, rrora me mere joy 01 oeing
JUM me tree Of muacrn alive. Alter I Baa lnhaiea part 01 my supply, my
has vouchsafed to htm verv bitter and Poison- t0 cUlmor- Uke 00d "ervant wh0 had
ous fruit. Strange, new drugs the miracles
of chemistry and the marvels of the labora
tory, the nepenthes of surgery and the hand
maids of, the science of medicine are proving
Circes vf destruction to countless weak, un
wary mariners who do not know the dangers
of the dreams to which their jaded nerves and
senses are so readily allured.
The old fable of the Circean transfor
mations of men into swine is being repeated
. now- in absinthed Paris, by means of seduc
tive ether; in wearied London, by means of
thrilling oxygen, and in nervous America, by
such an epidemic of cocaine and morphine and
opium as has left the medical profession ap-
' palled at the hideous results. . 7."T7"""
BURE-oxygen has of late proved so valuable for
the instant stimulation of patients who are
on the verge of collapse. In various emergen
cles of illness and of surgery, that many well
". furnished drug stores keep a generous supply of cyl
. Inders constantly in stock.
Occasionally in this country one will sea oxygen
cylinders as a feature of the window display, with
card announcing tHe fact that the gas can be had. In
absolute purity and in any quantity, at all hours of the
day and night
The purpose of the display Is more for attracting
; the notice of neighboring physicians than for the 1m
' pression of the general public. The average man or
woman, in health, noticing the big iron cylinders,
paiee them with no more personal thought of their
utilization than the devout hope that they may never
be needed.
But in London, that vastest aggregation of hu
manity ever assembled on the world's surface, with
every pleasure drained to the dregs by thousands of
men and women whose wealth has denuded them ef
the capac'tr for sensation, the discovery of a gas
which is the very essence of the breath of life has
Inaugurated an epidemic of the most dangerous form
f Intoxication.
In the fashionable .West End. the facilities tor
furnishinr the exhilarating cylinders are far more
ci mm on ii.an they are at present in even the great
clt!s of the United States. All the "chemists." as
Er.Eianl calls its drurglsts, are only too eager to fur
nish oxygen cylinders to easterners, and the custom
ers sre saw oolr too eager to buy.
INROADS INTO SOCIETY
There has sprung Into existence a regular and con
siderable trade with women prominent in London so
ciety, who constitute no negligible factor in the
spreading- vice. The physician of London concede the
truth, that the number of the oxygen fiends Is steadily
Increasing. The dangers are being heralded through
the daily press and la the confidential secrecy of the
consulting room.
A fearful dsnsrer It Is. too. on which Is least sur
mised and least anticipated by the victims of the ter
ribie habit
Pure oxren. t the human body. Is pure Are. Nor
tnll'. la our inhalations of the ordinary stmosphere,
we draw la lust nough, and bo more tban Is uffl
eieat to maintain a rate of chemical combustion suf
acieot for existence, until the last natural supply of
fuel has tea consumed. -
Tfcea the ha man being dies, a llrlnr candle that
fcM bamed away, steadily and alowly, at the rate of
coa-bvettoa preordained from the first.
Every America baa experienced, to a Ilm'tei v.
rre. at4 tn a wholly beneficial measure, tb Ir.i !
cailrr errt f oxygen. Suddenly, -evmid the oppressive
air eoadiUeas ef tae American w later, all r oudi cear
e-sy, as tbeuri tn obedience to the "cold wave - bul
letins ef tao Weather Korean. Within a few hours
the ttsnperatare drops twenty, thirty, even forty de
g rea
Thero eontee then sock a msh of dry. pre. nrre
tles in air. sveerira- over the land from tie l!mttls
3txhwt. tbat every man, woman and child fairly
larr.e wv. t ruls vtror of life revivified.
Tbat la tke Americas brand of oxygen, as
feru4 by ! re trora her HmiOeee reeervotra, a
""i wbib - aa ne t recesTiise as tbe real
- " er i rreni tu, .tery In the matcLleas
t ; " er-ergr ( the mrra reople
44triV Ida l!Tr eihtratmn o tvlw r1
-Jt 1 auu e-&4 la! eUos caa bo
a killing speed. The oxygen fiend lives so fast that
early death Is inevitable.
Only a little while has elapsed since all Paris was
agog over a scandal of the stage such as Paris itself
had not previously succeeded In paralleling. Senator
Beranger's crusade against the nude in publlo per
formances .finally haled into the courts a couple of
music hall managers and a whole group of actresses,
who were responsible for the notorious scenes of the
"Ether Debauch." One manager got three months in
jail, and two of the women fifty days.
The women had gone through, In public, all the
shocking details of the new Parisian vice, until, ap
parently overcome with the ether fumes, they had
toppled, over. In their nudity, upon the furniture and
floor of the apartment shown upon the stage.
Paris Itself, apart from the scandal of the nude in
that affair, Is Uffting its ether drunkenness with
much less alarm than London greets Its oxygen.
Paris Is occupied with fighting its familiar foe, ab
sinthe, and does not recognize the Imminent dangers
of the newer vice, although all French physicians are
now on the qui vlve for a grave epidemic of the habit
In its proper sphere, ether has proved an inval
uable ally of the surgeon, and It Is the favorite an
esthetic of American practice, because the percentage
of fatalities attending its use is much lower tban
that of the chloroform affected by Europe.
With both ether and chloroform, however, distin
guished practitioners in England- have recently con
fessed suspicion that profound changes occur In the
blood vessels and brain, which give no trace of their
existence at the time.
Tears later, the patient
may succumb to apoplexy
or paralysis.
In Paris it has becomo
the habit of many men
prominent in society mem
bers, ln4ad, of the old no
blesse to carry about
with them vials of ether,
which they uncork as op-t
portunity offers.
A few whiffs of the drug as it volatilises under
their nostrils, and they proceed, apparently sober, ap
parently In their right minds, but actually with their
senses numbed and their brains hazed into what Is
merely a sub-conscious awareness of their surround
ings and their movements while their imaginations
roam amid a day dream of revelry in luxurious fan-
The peculiar vices Indulged In by the two nations,
respectively, are characteristic of their respective cli
mates and temperaments. The heavy, sluggish Lon
don fair impels its natives to the gas, which gives the
sense of physioal energy and mental exhilaration.
The light, gay nature of the Frenchman asks the de
lights of sensuous dreams.
But the punishment is as inevitable for one as for
the other, where tbe bored, oppressed oxygen fiend
pays early with his life for his brief hours of.jubU
lance, the ether fiend prepares the Insidious way for
ruinous collapse, such as used to strike down with
horrifying power Mansfield's Baron Chevrlal, in "A
. Parisian Romanes."
Llks so nany Baron Chevrlal s, the ether fiends ,
speedily show tbe dreadful evidence of their debauch
ery. Pallid, their faces drawn with the harsh lines ef
rapidly falling health, the youngest and strongsst of
them rapidly assume the aspect of decrepit roues,
which, in fact their excesses in ether have made them.''
All the symptoms correspond to the degeneration
which attends the growing American vice of cocaine.
In America, thus far, both oxygen and ether have
seised upon comparatively few victims, too few to be
alarming in contrast with the known, dismaying facts
regarding the prevalence of the cocaine and morphine
habits. But it is feared that both vices will soon take
root in this soil.
The use of morphine, or opium, is believed by com
petent medical autnoritiea to greatly exceed the extent
of the cocaine curse.' But the latest Is always the
most ssnsationai: and so more attention has been
given recently by city, state and national authorities
to the checking of cocaine's Inroads than has been
accorded tho struggle against opium. Nevertheless,
cocaine has progressed with such fearful strides that
it is now almost qualified to take Its place besldo
opium. In all of the poppy's damning transmutations
as a drug.
The Fostofflce Department has gone to the extreme
of refusing to carry in the mails cocaine or any of
its compounds. Leading physicians have remarked
the fact that the price of the poison so useful when'
employed within its proper limits for the relief of suf
feringquickly dropped from 5 to 75 cents an ounce,
solely because its Illegitimate use made a market so
extensive that the supply was produced in volumes far
In excess of any normal need.
The rich fall victims as well as the poor;, but the
prevalence of the habit Is more obvious among the
unfortunate and the criminal of tho large cities more
apparent among the criminal than among the merely
Indigent
One reason Is that the poor possess moral stamina
which qualifies nearly all of them to abstain from
such suicidal practices; the other reason is that the
indigent who do become cocaine fiends pass, almost
immediately, Into the criminal class, j
' While the East has been In anxious alarm over the
cocaine vice, the West has found opium so extensively
used, by persons of the highest standing socially, that
only constant crusades against the druggists who sell
It has proved of any avail for its restriction.
Science, in no wise responsible for the human dere
licts whose haggard, etiolated corpses roll hideously
In its wake, must go on Its conquering course, dis
covering fresh safeguards against tho primal curse of
pain, whatever the losses among those whose moral
strength is insufficient to fit them for the new temp
tations the discoveries bring.
But cannot that newest of the sciences, the medico
legal science, devise. Instantly upon the great discov
eries of the future, the antidotes of law which shall
make weak humanity Immune from Its own abuses of
the blessed boons?
cfentific
a.
MiSfeestType of Art for S
l iau v - -- -
:t'i Psii
1 W-" fe girt ' 1 11
. ' s 5 ii ... - .
WHAT is that t A sunset seen through a
porthole! The effect is fine!"
f f "No," replied Louis Schmidt, the
artist, "that's a bird's-eye view, so to
speak, of the inside of a man's eye."
The visitor to the art studio at the medical
laboratories of the University of Pennsylvania
marveled.
The inside of an eye ! And yet what a wonder
ful picture like a sun disc veiled in roseate clouds,
with streaks of light wavering outward and
strangely soft effects in gold and rose. It was a
wonderful picture, exceptionally wrought, and an
example of the remarkable work in high art done
at each laboratory in this country.
eel -w" yfS. they rxw paint r-W-tores of masefes. bono,
vl- V ' tlsaoea, Cultarea of germs ana diseased n em
s' ' branes wttb aa mark "re as the Brtt-dses
"g ' JL landscape artist reproduce spring la the
eoenu-y or a view et tio oe.
Elxjt avrt X. aasUUnx aaaiomtral -reeart&-aAa-4o
co'rr.e extremely Important It marks the strides of
medicine and surgery up tbe wieeatala of progress.
Until comparatively a few years ago tbe roedtral
student studied his text books, and got vagno Ideas
of the muscles, the effects of 1 11 more, disease aad
deteriorations from Imperfect drawings - or from
work on ra da vers j
To many, the slow stages of snueeoiar decay were
nnly Imperfectly known; 1 hey did not have adequate
Idea of tbe stagee of disease, tbe chances tn the
color and cnmnosttlens of the tissue while aonsual
operations earn to tbera largely tbroagh hearsay.
New. however, ft le different.
A man Is taken to a. hespttal: fcls) rase Is -soaX
Trie eargooas wish -a tattfcfol record of the
process ef the eperaMoo: tt'ev lire f hf ul refrro
ducttnns cf the diseased tlMeeo. the reticereos growth
or ohatever it rey be. and while hv worn by thttr
ele ta mm, sntet. alert, wl'h vls.iart eye. mak rg
sketches of tbe prf ems e the wsrk, of the esos)
SrsaaA and la cUae. coaaiUoav ef the anasciae. .
jbv fe ffusces.arrAccbed out.
Later, when Oie operation Is ever and many de
tails have failed m the surgeon's memory, he may
present a record of the work; he will have a picture
of tho tissues, showing the Inflamed condition In
actual colors.
Ia giving a lectare on this remarkable rase he
can Illustrate It aa well as though he performed
the artaal operatloa beneath the eye of his listeners.
This is one ef the advantages of high art In sor
cery. At the entrance to the medical laboratories ef
the University ef Pennsylvania Is a tower. Were a
visitor to climb tbe snarble stairs vatll be feuad
Mmeelf at the top be would probably be surprised.
For tho room In which he would find himself weald
be nnhlng less the aa artist's studio. '
There are stands covered with pigments and water
eolorm. On easels are sketches, hair, ndnnet Oa
a reaves screen, typical of the artist etadle, raiire
tar, cleverly though reagaly drawn, tell of the
artists" ooae of h amor.
Oa the wsX baag beads ef Romer. Plana and As
tlnew. Oa a shelf are busts of nopboclea. Beethoven
and 1 ml ef a boy'e beaA A t inning wheel In a
rwiM gives a orreetl' of bee-elieeaa. ' There le a
It rtss filled with book a Tee sunlight fame
throve the borther win-dew d ta g'.ar yea
swerve two tavra b2y at work.
Tou will find both Louis Schmidt and Irwin F.
Faber genial then. They are artists of high rank,
and their names are known throughout the country.
Ask any one at the Academy of the Fine Arts in Phila
delphia about them, and you will be told of the artist
kill of both.
" They are artists not of landscape, but of natural
scenery the scenery of the human body. These two
men are the Mlllals and Claude Lorraine of anatom
ical and pathological art
Tho art studio at the university Is an Innovation
In this country. It Is regarded as one of the most
important adjuncts of the department of medicine.
It was Instituted nearly ten years ago, and remark
able a has been the work done there. Its existence,
except to physicians and surgeons, is practically un
known. .
There are made sketches, paintings, charts and
drawings Illustrating the most important operations
at the University and Philadelphia hospitals. Illustra
tions for books published by the medical staff and
for lectures and articles by the most eminent sur
geons an dc anatomists.
Both Mr. Faber and Mr. Schmidt, besides their
routine work, have made drawings for the Rocke
feller Institute and have illustrated an Important
book on anatomy. In this book are 2000 original
drawings. v.
The work extended over a period of twelve years.
In this volume appear some of the finest examples
of this kind of art; you will find limbs drawn, with
the muscles and veins exposed, done in natural colors,
faithful in every detail; you will see mlcroscopio
paintings of sections of muscular tissues, normal and
elseased, painted from specimens studied by the ar
tist through a powerful microscope. And these paint
ings present a much. If not more, verisimilitude,
more regard to detail, color, tones and shading than
any landscape or portrait. '
. TEDIOUS AND DIFFICULT
The work is tedious and difficult But It 1 artis
tic. There is no possible doubt of that.
, How do tho artist work, vou askr While you
are there a doctor appears and says ho would like to
have drawings made of the removal of the lachrymal
sac. Tho artist takes his psncll and hastens to the
operating table. While the work goes on he makes
sketch of tho operation step by step; his memory
must serve him well, for In the short time he csn
only do It In the rough and later must make a faith
ful wash drawing.
Or perhaps a surgeon wishes a section of tissue
painted, showing the diseased cells. A small piece of
tissue is hardened In a solution, after which a thin
section Is moonted on a block of glass and atalned
with pigments. Placed under a microscope. It is
drawn, magnified from ISO to li 0 times.
Every celt every particle ef tissue must be col
ored faithfully. Imagine tbe patience, the amount of
detail and mastery of color required ! This work is
blr. fVbmldt's specialty.
These artists knew the entire struetor of the
body; la their mlads Is a faithful picture of the nor
snal color and condition ef all thomusclea This Is
necessary so they caa faithfully show abnormal con
ditions, Aad they work comparatively fsst A wster
roler ran he snade In three end one-half hoars, while
Mr. Schmidt prod sees difficult microscopic drawings la
at period ranting from Ave hour to three days.
The nee of those faltbfal bite of art work assists
students In their study of anatomy. This work Is
ron ceded by all (e be ef tbe highest Importance la
'the development of snedlclne and surgery. And what
nast stsrt e tho onlnltteted I medicine aird surgery
le that la thle work todioca. difficult, of tremendous
Importance, the finest, highest Art spelled wlLk
capita ennat be employed. ,
"1