{"id":5283,"date":"2014-11-21T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T17:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5283"},"modified":"2024-11-28T10:29:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-28T16:29:49","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-november-21-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5283","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour for November 21, 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Today’s Barely-Hanging-On Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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\nOn December 6, 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a munitions ship (the Mont Blanc) collided with a vessel in the Narrows of the harbor, triggering a catastrophic fire and explosion that destroyed much of the city, killed over 1,600 people and injured over 9,000. Many of the injured had been staring out the window at the burning vessel when it exploded, resulting in horrifying facial injuries from broken glass. Dr. George Cox, a local eye surgeon, operated for more than three straight days. Here is an excerpt about his efforts:At Camp Hill, Cox was still standing over the operating table. He had been at the hospital for forty-five hours, operating straight for over thirty. He was rationing the chloroform for use on the worst cases. On Saturday afternoon alone he removed twenty-five eyes and threw them into a medical surgical bucket on the floor. By mid-afternoon it was full. The medical student in charge of gathering information, who had served beside Cox since his arrival, gently put down his tags, smiled at Cox, and fainted. Cox leaned over the table and saw the young student lying in a heap on the floor, looking like the patients he had worked on since Thursday night. It seemed like weeks had passed since then. He requested a replacement.When Jack MacKeen, a soldier, returned to the hospital Saturday morning after sleeping several hours at home, he was summoned to Cox\u2019s side. He made his way to the \u201cbusy eye ward,\u201d where he walked between the rows of patients with gauze over their eyes and linen tags pinned to their chests. He had heard the rumors about eyes being removed without anesthetic, which made him apprehensive. At the end of the ward, two soldiers picked up a man on a stretcher and carried him through the makeshift door. MacKeen followed them behind the screen, where he got his first look at Cox, who was standing over a patient on the table. His wavy hair, which he tried so hard to keep neatly combed and parted, had fallen into loose curls. His smooth broad face looked as haggard as soldiers returning from the front. Next to him on a chair was the man who had been carried in on the stretcher. Half of his face was chopped open. A nurse administered chloroform at the end of the table. One of the original five nurses, she also looked exhausted. Cox caught the teenager\u2019s glance at the surgical bucket and asked him to empty it. When MacKeen returned with a clean bucket, Cox ordered him to take charge of the tags, gathering the name and address of the patient, \u201cthe type of operations, etc.,\u201d and they continued this way until sometime after supper when the nurse put down the chloroform cone. Her eyes looked heavy, as if she were having trouble making sense of the scene before her.\u00a0 She could not go on. Cox looked over to MacKeen and told him to take over.<\/p>\n

The nurse showed him how to place a metal-framed cone strung with ribbed-cotton gauze over the patient\u2019s nose and mouth and then slowly drip the sweet-smelling chloroform onto the fabric until the patient slipped into unconsciousness. She monitored the patient\u2019s pulse and his eyes carefully. Administering chloroform was no simple matter. Only trained doctors were supposed to administer it, and in America they were already switching to ether which was easier to control. The nurse left the teenage MacKeen and the soldiers lifted the man with a severely lacerated face onto the table. His nose hung upside down over his mouth and chin. Cox looked at him with curiosity. \u201cRemarkable\u2026 the face had been cloven down slantwise from the bridge of the nose as if with a hatchet, going through the nasal cavities and antra, and the whole flap hanging forward.\u201d He examined it from every angle, perplexed. What was left of the nose was swollen and inflated. The wound itself was clean. He picked up the flap and fit it perfectly onto the wound, but the man gasped for air. Cox pulled it back, fascinated. He had never seen anything like it, but he had an idea how to fix it.\u00a0 Cox fed a tube through each nostril into the cavity and sewed the whole nose back onto the face. It was the only thing that he could think would work.\u00a0 When he checked the patient several days later, he was pleased to find that it was healing.\u00a0 \u201cAs if nothing had happened.\u201d The man could breathe.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0Curse of the Narrows<\/a><\/p>\n

I highly recommend this book, by the way. It’s fascinating and ghastly from start to finish!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Fifty Cents Of Death!<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Jack <\/strong>sent me some photographs from the “good old days” before we knew that asbestos was bad for us! I’ll let Jack <\/strong>tell the story himself:<\/p>\n

Death Before Duct Tape<\/strong><\/p>\n

One cannot watch late night cable TV without seeing the attorneys hocking their services to anyone who has come into contact with asbestos through their work or other activities.<\/p>\n

Well, \u201cback in the day\u201d powdered asbestos was a common item at any hardware store. Before we had duct tape, asbestos was used to seal the ducts of home heating systems as well as other pipes that carried heated air.<\/p>\n

You simply mixed your raw asbestos dust with a little water to create a paste, applied the paste to the joint you wished to seal and heated the paste until it hardened.<\/p>\n

Imagine a mixing bowl of the dust, a large spoon and some water.<\/p>\n

Who knew back then?<\/p>\n

Note on the label the other toxic goodies this company sold AND the price. Only fifty cents for a whole container of death.<\/p>\n

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\nJust add water!<\/em><\/p>\n

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\nLet me guess that their former factory is now a major EPA clean-up site?<\/em><\/p>\n

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\nDeath for Sale… only fifty cents!<\/p>\n

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\nYay! \u00a0Powder to play with!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Joel-Peter Witkin: An Objective Eye<\/h3>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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When I featured “The Kiss” by Joel-Peter Witkin the other day, I meant to mention that there is a documentary about Witkin that was released in 2013. I haven’t seen it yet, but plan to do so soon. \u00a0I did watch the trailer and it looks like an interesting view into the mind and spirit of one our greatest photographers.<\/p>\n

Joel-Peter Witkin: An Objective Eye<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to Katchaya <\/strong>for the reminder!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Today’s Barely-Hanging-On Yet Truly Morbid Fact! On December 6, 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a munitions ship (the Mont Blanc) collided with a vessel in the Narrows of the harbor, triggering a catastrophic fire and explosion that destroyed much of the city, killed over 1,600 people and injured over 9,000. Many of the injured had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-facts","category-sundry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5283"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13937,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5283\/revisions\/13937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}