A NOVEL SUIT AT LAW.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1165, 25 October 1883, Page 3

A NOVEL SUIT AT LAW.

A New York paper of 13th July contains a report of a somewhat novel suit at law, from which we give the following :—Charles J. Okerberg, a clerk in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company, would in all likelihoocf have died on tha 17th of February last had it not been for the transfusion ' into his veins of several ounces of blood from the body of Edward Banks, a voting colored man. In the Sixth Judicial Court yesterday, before Mr H. Kelly, there was a trial of a suit brought by Banks against Mr Okerberg, for ' goods sold and delivered '—being the former's blood —and for personal services. The sum sued for was £sl. Mr Okerberg is a Swede, forty-two years of age, tall, stout, and full-faced. Early in the evening of February 16, he took a room at the St Andre Hotel, in West Eleventh street, near Broadway. At six o'clock the following morning a pmell of gas was detected coming from his room. The door and transom were fastened from within, but an entrance was effectad through a window. Mr Okerberg was found uncouscious upon the bed, and the gas was escaping from an open jet. Dr James H. Anderson and Dr Valentine, who resided near by, were quickly summoned, and at once applied hot bottles and mustard plasters to the skin of the unconscious man, rubbed his feet with a stiff brush, applied ammonia to his nostrils, and instituted artificial respiration. These remedies were of no avail, and the patient was apparently becoming worse. His breathing was puffy and his pulse barely perceptible. A letter having been found in Mr Okerberg's pocket from Dr Henry J. Garrigues, of No 137, West Twenty-second street, he was sent for. He at once suggested that transfusion of blood be tried. The other physicians agreed. Banks, a stout, healthy, full-blooded Southern negro, 19 years of age, was a porter in the hotel. The physicians asked him to permit them to take the needed blood from him, but he objected. They answered him that the operation would not be injurious to him, and promised—so Banks alleges—to recompensate him for his blood at the rate of ten cents a drop. These representations induced Banks to submit himself to the operation. He bared his left arm, a vein near the elbow was opened and an oyster bowl caught the blood. As it flowed into the bowl, Dr Valentine beat it with a fork. It was then strained through a handkerchief into a tin funnel and received in another bowl placed in a basin of hot water. Dr Garrigues then made an incision in a branch of the basilic vein on Mr Okerberg's forearm, and took from him about eight ounces of dark blood. While the blood was flowing the breathing improved somewhat. Dr Valentine, who was feeling the pulse on the other arm, reported that it was becoming faint, and the bleeding was stopped. Then Dr Garrigues inserted into the vein that had been opened the nozzle of a transfusion apparatus and injected very slowly about six ounces'of the blood taken from Banks. During the injection, which took, about three-quarters of an hour, Mr Okerberg's pulse became fuller and less rapid, and the breathing, although still frequent, resembled that of natural sleep. At half-past Baven o'clock the pulse and respiration were normal ; the patent laughed and chattered cheerfully, and had only a slight headache. As a precaution he was to be awakened every hour during the night. The next morning he had completely recovered. About the spot upon the forearm where the skin was, punctured, however, there was a black spot about the size of a silver dollar and this remains to the present hay. Witnesses having been examined to prove that no terms were agreed upon with negro for his blood, and that he has accepted " five dollars in full for services rendered," the Judge reserved his decision.