Have you ever watched one of those shows or a Youtube video where people eat something weird or gross? Here is a tidbit from the past that, in my opinion, tops all those shows.
As you may already know, many medical doctors kept human parts, or specimens, in jars of alcohol in the past. This was the case in 1895 at the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which was on the Bellevue Hospital grounds.
The medical school would hire patients from the hospital to clean and keep the school in good working order.
39-year-old Thaddeus Carolin was one of these workers. He was a patient at the hospital and was being treated for alcoholism. He worked in the dissection room, which also had a large display of specimens preserved in an alcohol solution.
Unfortunately for Thaddeus, this was not the type of alcohol one should drink.
Early on a Tuesday morning, while Thaddeus was at work, he was overcome with the need for a drink and began drinking the alcohol from the specimen jars.
He reacted violently, and it took several men to get him back to the hospital for care. He later died on Thursday at sundown.
While the story of Thaddeus is sad and tragic, what shocked me most about this article was the following line:
“Several other employees of the institution told the physicians what had happened, and they were greatly shocked, but the physicians said it was not the first instance in the history of the college that such a vile practice has been resorted to.”
Apparently, other patients working in the dissection room had taken sips out of the specimen jars in the past.
This revelation was just too much for me to believe, so I did a search in the archives to see if I could find any other reports of people drinking the alcoholic concoctions in specimen jars, and sure enough, I did.
In 1903, it was reported that a surgeon on one of the old warships was a naturalist and kept the specimens he collected in jars of alcohol on the ship. One day he noticed that some of the snakes and lizards he had collected started to rot in the jars. Upon further investigation, he found that the alcohol had been replaced with water. Sailors, needing a stiff drink, had snuck into his work area, poured out the alcohol in the specimen jars, and refilled them with water. By the time the surgeon noticed the switcharoo, it was too late.
As a side note, sailors were also known to steal all the yeast from the ship’s pantry to make their unique brews during long voyages.
Drinking out of specimen jars must have still been a problem in 1922. According to one newspaper report, the hygienic lab of the U.S. Public Health Service called the police when they realized they were missing a specimen jar full of tapeworms.
The researchers and physicians at the lab could not figure out why anyone would steal tapeworms, but the police detectives automatically assumed a “rum hound,” as they called it, had stolen the jar for drinking.
The detectives set up a trap to try and discover the drinker, but after several days nothing happened.
Frustrated, the detectives told the lab men to make another search of the facility, and sure enough, the jar of tapeworms was discovered tucked away on a shelf.
Original article detailing the specimen jar incident:
The Craving for Rum
Thaddeus Carolin, aged thirty-nine, died on Thursday in the alcoholic ward at Bellevue Hospital. He had been employed in the dissection room of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College for some time and when seized last Tuesday with delirium tremens the horrible discovery was made that he had been drinking alcohol from the anatomical specimens in the dissecting room.
When told this by several other employees of the institution, the physicians were greatly shocked, but they said it was not the first instance in the history of the college that such a vile practice has been resorted to.
Working in the institution are a number of men who are ranked as patients. In some cases they are incurable and require constant medical attendance. In others the parties are convalescent, and in return for room and board, and in some instances a small pittance, assist the doctors. Some of these men are partial dipsomaniacs, and others are convalescents from the alcoholic ward. Carolin ranked as a patient, although he was a regular attache of the college, which has no connection with Bellevue Hospital, but is located within the hospital grounds.
Carolin was taken to the alcoholic ward at 7:30 o’clock on Tuesday a.m. and he was so violent that it required several men to handle him. He died at sundown Thursday night. No autopsy was held.
Source: The Coconino weekly sun. (Flagstaff, Ariz.), 12 Sept. 1895.
