The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 19, 1897, Page 20

20 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1897. THE KNIFE OF SCIENCE OPERATION THAT WAS FOLLOWED BY THE PATIENT’S DEATH It was in an operating-room of a hos- | pital. A shadow of apprehension seemed | to rest upon and chill all present, for a| struggle between life and death was about | to take place before us, and none could be crtain of the outcome, “You wouldn’t dare to,”” the hospital narse Lad saia, decidedly and discourag- iwely. “Youfeel very brave about it now, no doubt, but when the time came you would shrivel up mis v. It's all non- sense for you to think of it, my dear.” Nonsense’’ or not, my mind was fully made up 1o attend the capital operation which was to be performed in this same | the white towels which she handed me | and went with her down the hall and into | a large room, where two nurses were | silently busy putting the last touches to their preparations for the affair on hand. | Through a skvlight the morning bright- ness shone directly down on a long table, | on which was a small rubber pillow and a | sheet. Beside it was a while-covered on which various wicked-looking ts ne-e carefully and systemat- | ged fr the convenience of the | ins cally arra operating surgeon, There was a faint sound in the hall, and every face grew alertand exprcetant. el ) i il I UL 1 WITNESSES A SUCCESSFUL I have never visited an abattoir, jbut I should imagine thatan animal who was ahout to be slaughtered, and knew it, would haye just about the same wretched, hopelessly-appealing look in its eyes as she had 1n hers. She smiled, however, a queer, siiff smile, as though her lips were frozen, when one of the doctors came forward and spoke a few words of commonplace encourazement as the nurses helped her to assume the proper position on her hard | couch. Not one word did she speak to any one; she seemed too utterly frizhtened todo hospital on the morrow, and I gained my | point at last, as I always do. Yielding, my small professional friend yielded handsomely, as generous natures do, and promised to arrange matters for me and | borrow an outfit from a fellow-nurse, who was, she unkindiy told me, nicknamed “the rments she said s. me. “Halt past 9 sharp,”’ she said as we parted at the door of her ward, “and you mustu’t be too dreadfully disappointed if Miss Blank puts her foot on the plan «ven then. She never has allowed any thing of the kind before and I am s d at her being coaxed over this time. 1 am afraid after she sleeps over it.” That night I was too ited 10 sleep soundly, and I awoke late with a nagging headache and a queer little sinking at my beart. I almost bed that I had never thought of penetrating into hospital mys- te ies d horrors, but a retreat now be a coniession c¢f weakness, which s too stubborn to make; therefore, bast 9 s p”’ found me in irend’s room making my toiler. At 10 o’clock my young chaperon came 10 one of the doors and beckoned. “Ev- ervthing is ready,” she said; “out you can give it up now, vou know, if you feel trizhtened.” Her words spurred up my fainting cour- 2ge, and without deigning to reply I took | my was the operating surgeon, a tall, slender, man with cold blue eyes, hard lines about his firmly set mouth and an almost mili- | tary prec sion and severity of manuer. At the first glance, while he was care- fully turning his cloves off by the wriste and nodding, to his conireres, nis quick eyes took in the room an1 its occups and noted some trifling fault in the rangement of his implements, which he | pointed out ana had corrected at once. | Then be looked at his watch impatiently, took off his coat and cuffs, and arranged bimseli in & garment which made him look like a mature and serious-minded butcher-boy, while one of the other doc- tors fullowed his example. They bad scarcely combleted these ar- rangements when the door op2ned qutetly and a nurse came in and stood at one side holding it back for three other women to | enter. Twoof them were nurses, and they | sapported tetween them a tall woman with a chalk-white face, cavernous black eyes and & mass of black hair banging in a long frowsy plait down her back. She were an enormous pair of pink wor-ted siippers.and a wrapper three or ou s too large for Ler, of the bright- est plaid flannel that Iever saw. And if being looked absolutely ever a human s:ck with terror, she dilas she yazed at| the table, the glittering instraments and | the waiting surgeons. | anything save move automatically as she wasdirected. And when one of the nurses whispered a friendly word or two in her ear | she din not appear to notice her at all, but kept ber eyes steadily and despair- | ingly fastened on the man who held her life in his hands, while he looked at her with merely cool professional interest, ap- parently with no aporeciation of the fact that she was a sufferinz woman whom he would restore to tne world or send out of it forever. Everything was ready now, and my friend, at a word from the presiding genius of the occasion, took her place at the patient’s head. A sponge wet with chloroform was placed in.a cone-shaped receptacle, and she held it with steady hand just over the woman's mouth and nostrils. The first inhalation sent a strong shud- der through the prostrate form. At the next ihere was a perceptible relaxation of the muscles. A few more long breaths and the thin hands were raised with a sudden convulsive effort 1o push away the drug which was insidiously stealing away all power of rense and feeling and motion. A watchfol nurse caught the feeble arms and held them firmly down, and one of the physicians placed a careful finger on the flut:ering pulse. A quick glance of interrogstion and answer passed from eye to eye, and then the waiting, statuesque fizures wakened into sudden life. The gorgeous plaid wrapper, previously unlfastened, was thrown open and the thin and pallid body, with the ribs standing out in bold relief, looked like a figure carven in ivory yell. wed by time. The operator, with the deliberation of fate, selected a knife out of theassortment at his side, and the others, moved by a comuion impuise, drew nearer, 3 Gripping the towel he intrusted” to me like grim death, I, too, stepped closer to the foot of the table, where I could see every movement of the skillful white hand which guided the keen blade. An instant, and a thin red line-appeared on the cream-colored skin as though the surgeon were marking out his work with a pen dipped in crimson ink. Thencamea awift, sidewise motion, and another ap- peared at right angles with it; and then another—each widening slowly as the blood crept over the edges of the clean- cut flesh, The woman had begun moaning faintly, plaintive, choked little moans that came and died away with every breath—the protest of the suffering body while the brain slept. At a signal from the doctor. who was measuring each beat of the artery under Lis finger, the chloroform cone was moved aside and the face colorless as death itself, with half-open, lusterless eyes, and thin lips drawn away from the teeth, was ex- posed to view. There was an oblong crimson hole in the patient’s throatnow, and the surgeon’s fingers were crimson. One of the nurses was busy with a cloth blotched and spot- ted with the same dreadful color, and the hands of the assistant, who was busily working in that ghastly opening with nip- pers and bits of thread, were smeared with crimson also. I turned faint with the sickening horror of it all. The hawk-like eyes of the overator, as he straightened up for a moment to relieve the stramn on his mus- cles and nerves, fell on me. *“We do not need you,” he said, sharply, but not unkindly, “and you will be better off elsewbere. You can be excused.” There was no help for it. His word was law, and, to tell the truth, I was glad to xet away without being compelied to beat an ignominious setreat, for my knees were shaking under me. I was outside the door in another minute and leaning against | the wall trying to gain control of myself and breathe naturally once more. Half way up the hall a man stocd, lo k- | ing biankly out inté the garden, brigut | with God's blessings of flowers and sun- shine. He was a thick-set man, in com- mon clothes, with a scrubby beard, mixed with gray, and round shoulders, and hard, gnarled hands, which stamped bim as be- longing to the hard-working clas-es. His seamed face was ashen underneath its tan, and his fingers clutcbed the edge of | the window-sill with a erip which hed dnven the blood from under his broken and dingy nails. He looked at me slowly and dully as I passed, and then looked out into the garden again, liis lips mov- | ing uncertainly under his ragged mus- tache. Perhaps he was praying, for he was the patient’s husband, and he was waiting—for what? Ihurried up to my friend’s room, and throwing myself on her narrow bed buried my face in her skimpy pillow. An hour | afterward the rightful occupant of the apartment came in serene and smiling. “I told you so,”” she said, with true feminine aggravatingness. “I knew that you couldn’t stand it; but it was a fine operation!"’ “‘Successful?” I queried breathlessly, | blaming imyself, now that it was all over, | for the cowardice which had prevented me | from seeing the affair through. “Perfectly,” was the enthusiastic [ answer; *not u single thing went wrong. Dr. X is certainly one of the finest sur- | geons in this country, and a briliiant operator. Itis a privilege to assist him. “tHow glad he must have been to be able tu give that poor woman back to her husband!’ I cried, “They will be ever- lastingly grateful to him !’ The nurse coughed balf apologetically. “As for that,” she said, “it was their own fauit of course, for she did not come to us soon enough. The operation was brilliantly successful from a scientific point of view, but unfortunately the pa- tient was very weak and the shock was too much for her.” | *And she is < “Dead,’”” said the hospital nurse, pla- cidly. FuxecarL McVasox. UNCLE SAM'S GOLD BRICK. Six days of knocking about on the deck | of a tiny trading schooner and six days of exposure to the wind and sun and rain was tie price we nad to pay for visiting Pago-Pago, the renowned harbor of the Bouth Fa ¢, where the United Sis is supposed to maintain a coaling statior Whnen we beat through the rocky en- trance of Pago-Pago it was just getting dark, and the strong southeast trade was dead in our teeth, sending bs o! cold spray into our faces every time the little schooner brought her nose down into the choppy sea, thrashing her way rapidiy to windward. We were cloze in to the northwestern end of the island, we could hear the roar of the surf as the breakers dashed themselves fruitlessly against this | terribls iron-bound coast. | Talk about hydraulic machinery or your | turbines at Niagara. You should stand a the sea is at its best. The blowholes spouted like whales, sending great jets of air and spray high above the tops of the tailest paims. Great bowlders, as large as a dining-table, are lifted bodily from the | bed of the sea, thirty or forty feet beiow, and piled in confused heaps on the top of | the ciiffs above. And the ccean has cut for itself great caverns in the hard basaltic | rock, into which the strges thunder with a roar which shak s the mountain under your feet. I could see nothing but angry breakers | ahead, and it certainly seemed as if we | were making our last crnise. We swept | abead at a terrible rate, as the wind was now dead behind us, and the huge follow- ing seas carried us forward wiith their | impetus, though often their foaming | crests came too unpleasantly near the on the iron-bound coast of Samoa when | i | | of the mountainous tafirail to interest me. Now we were in for it,the breakers roared on either side. but where was the entrance? I had nothing to do but to sit still and obey orders, keeping her now a little up in the wind and now easing her off. The sky had been moderately clear for come time yast, and thus the skipper had been enabled to feel his way, butsuddenly, | with hardiy a minute’s warning, a heavy black squall swept down on us from one recesses of this stormy b-y. Itisalway: uaily in Pago- Puago, and to be caugtt like this, in the very j ws of the entrance, is the worst thing which can happen to the mar ner. ‘‘Hard down! Bring her up to it!” Close hauled the schooner lay down un- til the water foamed over the lee gunwale, but still we stood up toit and madea b } gk il 4 By o [ THE PAGO-PAGO COALING STATION WHICH IS A HOLLOW short tack to seaward, so as to get out of this dangerous entrance. We seemed fated to spend the night knocking about in the heavy sca outside, but fortunately | the squa!l passed off and we ran in again, i and ina few minutes we were sailing n smooth water between great rock walls, Present!y we ran around a point which shut us off completely from the sea and dropped anchor beside a little sandy beach which is never disturbed by the ocean surf, Our teeth chattered as we went ashore in the dingey belonging to the schooner, for evenin the tropics long exposure to the wind and rain can make one feel pretty cold. Soon we were comfortably settiea in a native house ashore. Late though it was, the native chiefs in the stcrrounding huts woke up on our arrival, and pres- ent'y they came t-ooping in to wish us a courteous “‘toiofa,”” which being translated weans “'my iove to you,” or, otherwise, a very polite *good day.’’ The kava bow! was produced, and a sleepy maiden wasaroused from her couch to prepare the national drink. It took phalf an hour to make it and a: least an- other half hour to drink and discuss it, so that it was long before we were allowed to repose at peace upon our mats. Next morning, when the sun was al- ready high in the heavens, I woke up with one idea firmly impressed on my mind. I was to inspect the United States coaling station—the place which, if war should ever oceur with any great nation, was to provide a rallying point and base of supplies for the great natiomul flser, The treaty of 1878, m:de betwe:n the kingdom of Samoa and the United States ol America, contains the following pro- vision: Naval vessels in the United States shall have the privilege of entering and using the port of Pago-.Pago and establishing therein and on the shores there- of a station for coal and.other supplies for their maval amd commercial marine, and the Samoan Government will here= after meither exercise mor au- thorize any jurisdiction with. in said port adverse to such rights of the United States, or restrictive thereof. The same vesselsshall alse have the priv. ilege of entering other ports of the Samoan Islands. This is all very weil in its way, but it does not give the country any exclusive lien upon Pago-Pago harbor, which dur- GORY BATTLE BETWEEN A FAMOUS DOGA AND A FIERCE BADGER @////W' e ////% y ¢y i This is the brief story of a noted badger fight that took place in S8an Mateo County. The go took place early in the morning, just before the city and county police con- clude their last nap. Several dozen well- fed and groomed sports were on hand, making a sort of ring around the spot of | combat, They stoud up in carriages, or balanced on hubs, or otherwise posted themselves within view and out of danger. “Toughy.” the doz, was brought out, | He smelled his game in an instant. But lie wus not so quick to the pursuit. The crowd was tickied. The owner was nervous. The dog rushed in. There was but a second of barking, a sort of undefined sound from the badger, and then — the scrap. Those who could see in could dis- tinguish only a confused mess of flying | white and black, in which the bulidog | was as hard to locate as the badger. The claws of the badger aud the nails of the terrier could be heard scratching furiously | the fight in him tnat he had shown in the | up and down the sides of the barrel. For | out with his victim, and agair he woula | in the hands of seem to weaken and be drawn back. 7 T, % 2% 7, / , 1777 houlder, to be sure, but they were there the man who kills h# a moment the dog would be teen coming | only as an eagle’s talons may g=t caught . The struggle continued for ten, fifteen, | twenty minutes. Betting was renewed and was evenly divided. The owner | danced around, uncertain of ths n:mlr,f but stiil faithful to his animal, Presentiy the doz was seen to back out slowly, | gaining a littie, then receding a little, and gaining again. Whnen Le approached the opening of the varrel it was evidant that he was torn and lzcerated in ¢l parts of his body, the blood streaming from the cut him keenly as a razor. There was not | rat- pit on scme famous previous occa sions, but he was still tugg.ng and shak- ing away at his antagonist. a big | late. interest for “Toughy.” | was shot to end his miseri-s, of the many which constantly are place in | notwithstanding the strictness of the ! and the severi'y of the penalty | In fact, badger-fighting is quite as cc wounds where the badger’s long claws had | mon an amusement Wiih a certa of Southsiders as cock-fi hting and dog- fighting | W : tectives could discover almost every Sun- | day a gong of men and d The badger was only a warm corpse. South San Francisco, and a bugey trail | All the lite he had was shaken out. There was cheer for Toughy, but it was too Even a cat would hava had nomore An hour later he The owner had won his bet. Tnis famous sub-rosa fight was oniy one very much the same locality said to be, or to have been, i The eyes of sharp de- st Berkeley. makin His teeth were fastened in hisenemy’s|along somewhere with a badger aboard ing the hurricane season may be said to | struction at no distant time of an | There are on quite as direct a line as Apia be the only safe piace of refuge in the | Isthmian canal adds greatly to the de- | very many poris, butnot one of them is group., Any other nation can, under ex- | sirability cf the-e islands and the harbors | American. isting circumstances, buy land on the shores of Pago-Pago, and establish a depot for coal or other naval supplies. And ss far as fortifications or other actual improvements go, everv other nation fis | States, fcr literally the nation has noth- ing to show for ner money. . In the morning, when I got up; from my mosquito screen, I took a look around to | see tue iamous coaling station. Congress | some ten years ago appropriatell $200,000 for the purpose of asserting the position of the nation in SBamoan waters, but where is the money now? Our hut, together with the cluster of a dozen or so which constituted ‘the little native village, stood on the edge of a semall bay which opened off the main island barbor. Goat Island, which is part of the property of the United States, on our right, at the end of & projecting point, which screened us from the sea, broke the torce of the waves which roll into the outer barbor. Before me, looking right across the bay, was a clear space of deep green water about a mile in width. Bebind and all around were the ruzged mouniains which completely screen this inlet, great clouds of mist tearing vio- lently across the.r rupged tops, for outside a gale still howled, and though we were more than a mile from the entrance, we | could plainly hear the boom of the break- | ers on the outer reef. It is a terrible place for squalis, the high mountains seem to attract all the tropical weather they can get hold of, and pour it down into this se- cluded inlet. For two miles from Goat Island the gorge, gradually narrowing, | runs right up into the heart of the moun- tain, and owing to this peculiar configura- tion, which acts like a funnel, the wind can only blow two ways, either up or down the gorge. Therefore it 1seither a fair wind in or ocut, and to-day, because the wind is rushing straight up the gully, our little schooner rides in peacefui se- curity a few yards away behina the rocky point. “1f the wind had been the other way,” remarked our skipper, now reposing in | the bosom of his family ashore, “'I should | have had to get another anchor out, forif | she were to drag, or part her cable, she would blow straight out to sea. As it is she cannot do any harm, even if she does go on the beazh.” Still for a Lig ship, with good grouna tackle, this isone of the safest harbors in the world, the only drawback being the depth of anchorage, which runs from thirty to forty fathoms. There 1s room here for the whole United States navy to lie in peace and security, for a line of torpedoes across the entrance would ef- fectually keep out any hostile shipe, When I had made myself thoroughly scquainted with the harbor view, I looked about for the coaling station, Where were the buildings and the wharves and all the appurtenances of a dockyard? Nowhere. A few hundred vards away, on the edge of the sandy beach, a couple of | flat-bottomed Jighters were hauled up to rot, and little bis of coal scattered about on the grass showed that fuel hud once been stored there. A few piles, their de- | cayed heads just projecting above the sand, Incicated the spot where a wharf had once been. This melancholy looking collection of | wreckage, -1 was given to understand, was the United States coaling station. Kifteen acres of land have been purchased here, put there is nothing to mark the boun- daries. The native houses and planta- tions crowd thickly on this little strip of alluvial beach, for the mountains rise al- most precipitously a bundred yurds back, palms and breadfruit trees and all manner ot luxurious tropical vegetation grow everywhere, the place lacks nothing of the picturesque element and it seems almosta sin to attempt any improvement of na. ture’s handiwork. Butas to the utility o1 such an establishment let me quote the authority of Mr. Mulligan, who was re- cently Consul-General for the United States at Bamoa: “8o far asconcerns the United States, the entire question of Samoa is centered in this harbor, that is, aside from what may, perhaps, be permissibly termed the humane interest of the American public in the rights and weifare of the Samoans. Whatever value, from a naval point of view, Samoa possessed when the treaty of Washington was formulated, that impor- tance bas since been increased many times over, The apparently ceriain con- they contain, whether that canal be under American control or not. importance of the possession of this group. from Apia to Auckland 1500, 10 Sydney | through tlie canal, were it in operation, 1f not under | American direction, then the greater the | “From Panama to Apia is 5710 miles, An American vessel, after pa ing “Simoz lies almost on the direct line of | would, to reach Sydney, sail a distance of exactly in the same position as the United | transit from the Istbmus of Panama to | about 000 miles without an opportunity Auckland, Sydney, and in fact all parts of | to make on the rouie other than an alien the Australian col nies. As the latter | port. grow in population, production and In the event of the United States becoming engaged in a war, supposing wealth, the volume of their tonnege—to | the canal to have been coustructed, the E urope especially, and in great parts to | the United States—must seek the inter- oceanic canal as its route when built, un- less driven away by exorbitant tolis. possession of an actual siation as a nava base at Pago-Page would b an advantage impossible to overestimate.” J. F. Rose-§ OLEY. TORTURED BY A RING, The Circlet Cut Through Flesh to the Bone. T Mrs. Fref‘l Giottonini of Salinas recently hung half an ho:ir by a finger-ring from a nail protruding from the wail of her sitting-room. She dia not succeed in liberat- ing herseif until the flesh of the finger was almost torn from the bone, She stepped on a trunk to hang up a bira cage, standing on tiptoe to reach the cage nook. The trunk was rounded and her foot siipped. She let go of the bird cage and reached for a support. Her finger slid down the wall, and an uzly nail protruding from the wall was jammed in veiween her ring and ber finger. Thus the full weight of her body was held by one finger. Of course it required but little time for the nail to draw the ring far into the flesh and to cause the blood to spurt. The pain was frightful. Mrs. Giottonini called for assistance, but as there was no one in the honse she was left helpless. The smooth wainscoting prevented her from catching hold of anvihing with her free band, and the slippery surface of ths trunk lid prevented her from getting any foots rest to relieve the tension on the tinzer. It wes a long and torturing experience bafore she finally succeeded in detaching the ring from the nail. She eventaaily got sufficient purchase on the trunk to lighten the weight a little, and by that time the flesh had been so much lacerated on the finger that it was comparatively easy to get it free. A docior was summoned and the ring filed from the finger, but it will be several weeks before the flesh can possib'v grow sufficiently to enable Mrs. Giottonini to use her hand with any degree of comfort.