By Harold Fuller
This article printed in 1883, authentic or not, points out the advances we have made in modern medicine and the suspicion under which we sometimes held old time editors who needed to fill column space. It was written for the truth, but, you can be the judge.
A short time ago, a wood chopper in the mountains near Carson City swallowed some bed-bug nits which hatched in his stomach, causing intolerable pain. He went to Carson and placed himself under the treatment of a local physician, who, after administrating emetics to get him to throwing up for a few days, sent his patient home as cured. He was probably nearly relieved of his troublesome guests, but a few had evidently clung to the walls of his stomach and stunned by the violent disturbance, were quiet for a few days.
The remaining bed bug nits soon recovered and in a few days the poor man was in great agony as he was before. He returned to Carson and meeting Sam Davis, told him of his troubles. Sam is practical, as he became a man who ran one of two daily newspapers in a small town like Carson. He thought up a system of treatment which was put into immediate practice.
The patient was taken to the back room over the Appeal newspaper office and starved for two days, until his stomach was entirely empty. When “Dr. Sam” was satisfied that the conditions were favorable he took out a can of Persian Insect Powder. The powder is deadly to all bugs and insects but harmless to mankind and animals. He attached a thin rubber hose to the can and ran the hose down the man’s throat and dusted the man’s stomach. The effect was most satisfactory. In less than an hour all pain had ceased, and the next day the now thoroughly cured wood cutter returned to the mountains carrying with him a can of the powder as a precaution and a receipt for a year’s subscription of the Appeal for which he had paid as a fee for his medical services.
