The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 27, 1898, Page 20

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 1898. USCULTATION, or tapping the trunk of the body to discover the condition of the organsfrom the sound, has long been prac- ticed by physicians as a method of dlagnosis. By placing the hand over one of the internal organs and tapping on it with the knuckles of the other hand, they could form some idea from the sound of the condition of the organ beneath. If the organ is compact, like the liver, the heart, or a bone, the sound is dull: and if it is light and full of gas, like the lungs and the stomach, the sound is sonorous. An organ that is sonorous in its normal state gives a dull sound when it is diseased, the lungs becoming dull as they are at- tacked by pneumonia; and vice versa. Of course these differences in the sound are extremely slight, and it has hitherto required much experience to interpret’ them correctly. But, thanks to the recent invention of Doctors Bi- anchi and Bazzi of the University of Parma, the newly fledged medico may diagnose the conditions of the internal organs with great precision as that veteran physician has acquired in years of practice. These two physicians have solved the problem of accurately collecting and - = WIN magnifying these sounds. This service had been done in part by the stetho- scope; but the new invention, the phonendoscope, has made a great ad- vance on the older instrument, and seems destined to count for almost as much In the progress of medicine as has the discovery of the Roentgen ray. The phongndoscope consists primarily in a metal stem, T, terminating in an ebonite button, B. The stem receives the vibrations of the organ and trans- mits them to a first disk of ebonite, which is made strong enough not to give when the stem is pressed against the human body. This first disk is separated by a shallow air chamber from a second ebonite disk, which is as thin as that of a telephone trans- mitter. These disks are bedded in a mass of metal about the size of a watch. Between the second disk and the metal is an air chamber, C, in which the sounds are condensed and then transmitted through the openings, O O, and the rubber tubes A A, to the physician’s ears. Suppose now that you wish to ex- amine the heart. You select on the chest the point where the heart is in direct contact with the thoracic wall This choice is important, for if an or- gan, say ‘a lobe of the lung, is inter- posed between the heart and the wall, the instrument cannot collect the vi- brations produced by the heart; they will be stopped in great measure by the 1 ung. Placing the bottom of the stem on the nuRRLRLN = RN nIRRRURNN HER DISAPPEA | STILL A MYSTERY =2 NCE : | % RA nHNNN nuNNVNNRL (AR AR R R R R R OSTON, Mass., March 25.—There | with the burial of the bmkgn»heanfid s = x in the fam- | father was also interred the family e qf?ff,h. ‘nl;m?h,, b sl on. The dying request of Mr | O Ak SBpDES hson was that his body be ance of Grace Stevenson, the | pyrieq from his wife's residence, and beautiful millionaire heiress, | this wish was complied with. t whose fate has puzzled the | in the early evening of April whole country, when the body of vear that Grace disappeared, James Stevenson, her father, was laid | in its grave, he having succumbed to the terrible mental strain of the un- certainty of the fate of his dausghter | and died of a broken heart, which ag- | gravated his bodily ills. | In spite of the fact that nearly a year has passed since Boston was startled by the announcement of the disappear- | ance, not one single clew to her fate | has been unearthed, and the mystery | remains as profound as ever. | After ten months’ time the police and | the members of the family alike agree | that they are powerless to solve the riddle, and the case bids fair to go| down In history as one of the most re- | markable of the few important com- plete disappearances on record. The entire country has been scoured by de- | tectives, a thousand clews have been | run down {n vain, money has been spent without stint and rewards of- fered by the thousand, but all to no purpose. | Not only can Grace Stevenson not be | found, but, unlike all other cases, the | police have been utterly unable to | trace her a single step after she left her home. It is as if she had dropped out of existence. The last faint hope perished this week when even the death of the father failed to bring the missing girl to the grave or to bring any message from her | telling whether she was alive or dead. Many of her friends think that this is sufficient reason to give her up for | dead, while others still cherish a hope that she may be living but forcibly revented from communicating with | er family. James Stevenson died Sunday at the ©Old Point Comfort Hotel, Old Poin Comfort, Va., and the body was at| once brought here. The last words of | the dying man were of his daughter, | and death had no sting so bitter as the thought that he must die without knowing his child's fate. It remained for death alone to patch up the family dissensions in the Stev- enson family, the troubles which some | people still think caused the voluntary | flight of Grace from the paternal roof, which was made so unhappy for her | because of the estrangement of her | father and mother. For years Mr. Stevenson had 'not lived in the family mansion at Brook- line, but kept bachelor hall at the Clarendon Hotel, of which hostelry he not long ago became the proprietor. All efforts at reconciliation were In vain, and Grace was the only connect- ing link between the two factions of the divided household. - She alone of | all the family still showed any affection for ‘her father, her brothers all siding with the mother and declining to even | visit their father. Then when she dis- appeared and Mr. Stevenson could not find any trace of her the shock was too much and nature gave way under the terrible strain. | But death healed the breach, and | | could easily have done. | combat any of these theories, yet the but it was more than two months later when the news was made public, the members of the family hoping to avoid unpleasant publicity and expecting to be able to find her by the efforts of their own private detectives. They | were unsuccessful, however, and soon | the whole country rang with the story of the strange case. Grace Stevenson is about 26 years old, although s does not appear to be a day over 2 She Is of a bit more than medium height for a woman, of | slender build, but of fine figure and | perfect carriage. Her complexion is her most remark- able feature, almost startling in its pallor, white as marble, vet relieved by a delicate flush on the cheeks. Her face is oval, cheek bones prominent, and nose straight and in perfect pro- portion. Her eyes are deep blue. Her hair is a rich dark brown with just a suggestion of Titian auburn when the sunlight touches it. Owing to an acci- dent in childhood her upper front teeth are false, and when she went away one of them was broken. Not a pronounced beauty, still an attractive girl, Grace Stevenson |is one who would attract attention upon any street. The singular details of Grace's de- parture baffle all attempts at theory making. It would seem that when she | left the house she had no intention of running away, for she had nothing but | slippers on her feet and only about $6 | in her pocket-book. She left all of her jewelry and valuables behind and did not provide herself with money as she There was not | the slightest sign of any preparations for departure in the house. She had not arranged any of her possessions as she would have done had she even been | going out for the shortest kind of a | visit. Everything was left just where | she had last used it. She did not even take her watch. With a pleasant word to her mother and brother Grace stepped aboard a | streetcar bound for Boston and has | never been seen or heard from since. ‘ Was she murdered? Was she kid- naped? Did she elope? Was she sud- | denly taken insane? Did she desire to escape from her unhappy home? These are the questions which have not yet been answered and which there is no prospect of answering. There seems to be plenty of evidence, however, to fact remains that she is missing. It was at first supposed that the fam- ily trouble was resgonsible for her leav- ing home, and the father and mother suspected each other of being implica- ted in her disappearance, but the death of her father refuting this on his death- bed, and the prostration of the mother because of her worry over, thet uncer- tainty, dispels this thought. The foi- | lowing words of Mr. Stevenson, how- ever, are pregnant with meaning and tragic in their intensity: | *‘Oh, that my girl would only let me | know where she is! I cannot under- stand why she leaves me in ignorance, Why does she not send me some word? | ;‘r alive she must know how I long for | er. A shows the stomach empty B after one-half liter of liquid has been drunk. C the stomach two hours late. point selected, you hold the stem per- pendicular to the thoracic wall, slight- ly depressing the skin. With the sec- ond finger of your free hand you com- press the skin toward the organ to be examined and rub it with the tip of ERTN AN | _ _ i EXAMINING THE CONDITION OF THE STOMACH WITH THE PHONENDOSCOPE. By moving this new instrument over the trunk of the body the operator can distinctly trace the organs lying beneath and can determine what condition they are in. been made by this newly invented instrument. fluid did not stop in the stomach. effects of water, seltzer water, te liter of liquid has been drunk; and CIENCE - ~CAN TELL © AL BbOUT Invention of a Novel Instrument That In- dicates the Gondi- tion and Work of Or- gans Under All Gir- the Internal cumstances. Many new and valuable discoveries “A’ shows the stomach empty; Al regarding the stomach have already or instance, it was formerly supposed that when one 8rank water the The new instrument shows that the stomach retains liqutd as’well as solid foods. Many new discoveries have been shown by it that are of Inestimable value to dyspeptics. d wine in the stomach. shows it two hours later. The accom: ing sketches show the shows It after one-half “You know what my home life has been for the last few years, and how Grace has striven in my behalf. She asked me on the last morning that I | saw her to come home. id as I kissed her for the last time, ‘Yes, dear, | I'll come home to-night.’ “I had my son drive me out that very | night, but I did not enter the hous My wife came out and ordered me away, and wanted to know what right | I had on those grounds. I told my son to drive me back to the hotel. I could not stand it. “Grace left home shortly after I was | there. She had asked that I return and stay at home,and I had promised my child that I would. I was refused admittance, and I think that she was driven from home too. I have not the slightest doubt that when I had gone away she and her mother had some | words. That woman is the cause of it all. Grace could not stand it any | more than I could and went away. | “I can scarcely believe that she has | done away with herself, but there are only two things to believe, either that she has gone away with some one or | that she has taken her life. She has | 1 | | had to stand the strain for three years, a}r:d_’u I couldn’t stand it how could | ghe? | “Why were the police not notified be- | fore and why wwas I kept in ignorance of it for four days?"” The elopement theory is an empty | one, for none of her friends have dis- | appeared, and she was not known to have had any lovers. | It she had committed suicide the body or some trace of it would have been found. | The same answer could be given to| | her folks know that she was alive. | the needle, and if necessary could turn | with good profit. the murder theory. If she was kidnaped for the pur-| | pose of a ransom she would have been | restored long ago, as the parents would have gladly bought her back, even though the price were her weight in gold. The insanity theory is scouted for the reason that there are no evidences of any wealness in her mind or traces of_insanity in the family. It is not believed that she left home | because of the trouble between her father and mother, for the reason that had this been the case she would cer- tainly have been at her father's side during his last moments, for she loved him dearly. Admitting all this. however, there must be some solution to the mys- tery. What is it? A former schoolmate, who was in the | same class with Miss Stevenson at the Brookline High School, says that Grace had a good voice and evinced some in- clination for the operatic stage. Mrs. | Stevenson, on the other hand, says that | Grace had no special musical ability lo; warrant any such leaning. She sang some, she says, but nothing out of the | ordinary. She had private lessons on | the piano, but not in voice cuiture. | Her friends, too, think that she would | have sent word home before this if she | had gone on the stage in order to let| It is said that Miss Stevenson was exceptionally proficient in the use of her hand to professional dressmaking The police think that | she may have gone out to earn her own living in this manner. Her uncle, John Stevenson, a wealthy manufacturer of linen underwear, is located at Belfast, Ireland, and at one time it was firmly believed that she had fled to his protection in order to escape from the trouble of her own home, It was understood that this was a plan conceived by her father in order to place his favorite daughter in a more congenial atmosphere. It was sup- posed that this plan was made on the day of her disappearance when she called upon him at the hotel, and that in case of any such contingency aris- ing upon his visit to the family man- sion as did actually take place she was to wait no longer but fly to her uncle. James Stevenscn, the father, ran away from home when he was twelve years old and at that time his brother John had not been born. James fought in the Crimean war and then came to America, without returning to Ireland. Thus the two brothers never met until John came to this country two years agc. He visited his relatives here and they all became fast friends. He whas particularly fond of Grace and has often since urged her to visit him and the invitation had been warmly sec- onded by her tather s | moment. Then the rumor of the flight to Ire- land was first bruited about. It was accepted as the only solution of the mystery, but a prompt cable denial from John Stevenson himself set this story at rest, although some people do even yet say that there may be some- thing in it after all, and that the cabled denial may have been a deliberate de- ception. But it does not seem at all probable that this is the case, in view of the serious illness of both the father and mother, which must have arcused the fillal instincts of the heart and compelled her to allay their fears for her welfare. Letters and postals and telegrams still continue to pour in upon the po- lice and the members of the family from all parts of the country, offering to locate the missing girl for various considerations, while some of them ac- tually claim to have her where they can lay their hands upon her at any But thousands of these have been run to earth only to disap- point the searchers. Many a sad and wearisome journey | has Mrs. Stevenson made to view the remains of some unknown unfortunate answering some of the details of the description of her daughter, but she has all along maintained that she Iis not dead, and that she will be restored to her some day, although she admits that she can name no logical reason for this belief. The celebrated mystery of the disap- pearance of Charley Ross pales into in- significance compared with that of Grace Stevenson, and the fate of the girl bids fair to go down in police an- nals as one of the very greatest and most fascinating cases on record. Thus the death of the father adds an- other important chapter to the story. ‘What will be the next? SELTZER WATER, this finger. gins to vibrate. These vibrations, in- appreciable to the ear, are amplified by the phonendoscope to a loud noise, and it may still be differentiated and recog- nized even when another organ inter- venes. Thus. the outlines of any internal or- gan which has a point of contact with the exterior envelope of the body may be located and outlined. Up to the present time anatomists have known the stomach only in the shape in which it is found in the ca- daver. Percussion could teach us noth- ing of the lower part of this often ail- ing organ. By means of the phonen- doscope it has been shown that the stomach, even when empty, is longer vertically than the anatomists had supposed, and that it is extended much more when it receives food. It was formerly supposed that when one drank water the fluld did not stop in the stomach. There exists, it was held, a special set of muscular fibers, sometimes called “the Swiss cravat.” which contracted and made the liquid pass along the way into the intestine. By the aid of the new instrument it has been discovered that is a mistake; the stomach retains liguid as well as solid foods. To empty itself the stomach rises, elongating itself transversely. The level of the liquid it contains rises until it attains the pyloric orifice and the liquid flows out intermittently. This shows the reason of the dry regimen pre- The organ underneath be- scribed for weak stomachs, the liquils drunk remaining in the stomach wi h the solid focds and the weight imposed on the organ is diminished in propo-- tion as the liquids are avoided. L According to the nature of the liquics the stomach disembarrasses itself of them more or less quickly, and the ob- servations made on this point by Dr: Bianchi and Comte, reported at the r cent International Medical Congress at Moscow, teach us much regarding the liquids that can be recommended to dyspeptics. The accompanying figures show the effects of drinking water, wine, seltzer water and tea. The first, A, shows the stomach empty; the second, B, shows it immediately after a half liter of the liquid has been drunk, and the third, C, shows it two hours later. It will be observed that the seltzer water passes away most slowly, which the peculiar hump on the outline of the top, opposite the exit, explains; the gas in the seltzer water is freed and ex- pands the stomach, forming a cushion against which the weight of the liquid has to be raised. Beer has much the same effect. Milk and chocolate pass away rapidly. ‘Wine, too, escapes rapidly, but this is in a measure due to the contraction of the stomach due to the irritation pro- duced by the alcohol. This rapld contraction explains the awakening of the apnetite produced by bitters. Liquors which give out gas, on the contrary, allay the pangs of hunger. “WINGING™ A ¢ S22 30 53 % %2 2 s CTORS are frequently called upon almost at the last moment to play a part which is entirely Jnew to them. On such occa- sions they perform truly extra- ordinary feats of memorizing. Almost all the well-known actors now playing in New York have been obliged to memorize parts with a rapidity which | seems marvelous. “My first appearance on the stage,” said William H. Crane yesterday, ‘‘was due to my retentive memory, and a curfous chance event it was. I was playing with some boys on the Boston Common one day when another boy, whom I did not know, came along. ‘I'm an actor,’ sald he. ‘Well, I can sing,” sald I, for I had the beginning of what promised to develop into a fair bass voice. ‘Come along,’ said the boy; my mother hear you.” ‘He turned out to be a son of the Hol- mans, who were at the head of the Hol- man Opera Company, and as the result of my chance acquaintance with him I was apprenticed to his parents for the munificent sum of nothing per week. “I used to hang around in the wings and watch the performances, because I didh’t get a chance to go on myself. At last, one night before the performance of Weber's opera ‘Der Freischutz,’ the singer who played Cas- par was suddenly taken ill. I had néver seen a line of the music of the dialogue of the part, but I knew it all by ear and memory from hearing it from the wings. I volunteered, went on, got through first rate, and that was the beginning of my stage career. “In the old days when I was playing in stock companies I was a great hand at what actors call ‘winging’ a part. An instance in my own experience will ex- plain the term. ‘David Garrick’ was announced for a performance at Mc- Vicker's Theater, Chicago. When I reached the theater in the evening I found that the actor who was playing Squire Chivvey hadn't turned up. I didn’t know a line of the part, but as I was known to be quick study I was asked to fill the breach. Before the curtain went up I had ‘gobbled’ the lines of the first act. Standi. g in the wings I'd glance over the lines before going on. The second act I studied during the intermission and got a re- call for the drunken scene at the end of the act. During the next intermis- sion I learned the third act, not one line of which I had read when the cur- tain went up on the first. “In those days there was no question about an actor jumping in at the last moment and either ‘winging’' or ‘swal- lowing’ a part. ‘can,’ but of ‘must.’ I was known as a terrific ‘swallower.’ I swallowed’ the part of Hector In ‘Led Astray,’ a part consisting of sixty-four closely written ‘lengths’ (as we call pages), in a day. It's a curfous fact, however, that the longer a play is on the more there is to do for the prompter. The first week or two of a new play hardly any prompting Is required. After a while, though, we have to have a prompter in either wing. Somehow much repetition seems to make the act- or careless. He lets his mind stray from the role," drops a line here and there, and can’t pick it up without the prompter's aid.” “The only instance T recall of ‘swal- lowing’ a part,” said Mr. John Drew, “occurred—but I am beginning to de- 8238828283!383823282825233323338!282828333333389!38352!’3 WITH THE ACTORS LRRULLRARBILLRIRN ‘let | chafing | It wasn’t a question of | o 8 5 % 54 PART suunN |cline to give dates now. I had been touring and returned to Philadelphia at 5 o'clock in the morning. Reaching | home 1 was confronted with the an- noupcement that by evening I must have a new role, and a long one, ready | —Mr. Bronzely in ‘Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are. But I lowed’ the part and played it all rig “In fact, I am a ‘quick study. the quality of a part often determines the ease or difficulty of learning it. For instance, it required more time for me to learn the Comte de Candale ir the ‘Marrfage of Convenience’ than tomem- orize Dick Rudyard, my present role. The latter is colloquial, whereas the Comte's lines are very clear cut and precise, and one must be very exact in speaking them. I have always found it easy to learn blank verse. The rhythm of the verse seems to suggest the word.” “In every-day matters,” said Henry Miller, “names escape me, but do not in theatrical roles. I suppos must remember them by the aid sound, as one remembers harmonies in music. They form, as it were, part of the dramatic harmony of the role. “So far as actually committing a part to memory is concerned I may say that I never study. I doubt if I have de- voted an hour to actually memorizing ‘The Master.” I absorb my lines by go- ing through them at rehearsal. I my- self do not believe in the farmal mem- | orizing of lines. I think the effort de- | stroys spontaneity. You get the lines | instead of the general tone of the role. | “During the long run of “The Wife' 1 | | | at the Lyceum Theater I had rather a curious experience. Mr. Lemoyne and myself had a good deal of time on our | hands, so we decided to devote it to mastering a system of memorizing which was taught by a specialist. We went to him and took a course of les- | sons, with the resuit that as we began to master his system’we began to for- get our lines in ‘The, Wife’ We ac- quired the whole line of the Presidents of the United States, but we lost the lines of Belasco. So we stopped kill- ing time that way.” “Swallowing a part is all very well,” said Charles Walcot of the Lyceum Theater Company, “but you know a ‘swallower’ forgets the role the next day as completely as if it had been wiped off a slate. 1 have had to do considerable ‘swallowing’ in my time. When I was playing at Winter Garden —I don't think I will tell you how many years ago—we got up a benefit for the family of Fire Chief Morgan, who had been killed at a fire. At 4 o'clock one afternoon I was cast for Captain Hawksley, in ‘Still Waters, Run Deep.’ It's a role of at least twen- ty ‘lengths,’ and has a lot of algebra problems and algebralcal expressions which have to be rattled off with ab- solute correctness, and 1 never studied algebra. But the next morning, at 10 o'clock, I rehearsed the part letter per- | fect, and played it that n ht. I sup- pose It would take me two weeks now | to learn that role. But when you'rs | young you can do almost anything, for ours is a profession in which the older yqu grow the less you find you know about it. “In the old stock company day: which are being revived in a measu the stock star was supposed to know all the leading parts going, besides sec- ondary roles, in which ~he might be obliged to support some special star during ‘some particular engagement. So many roles and S0 mMany costumes were his stock in trade, and if he could not go on at a moment’s notice he was likely to lose his position.