Joan Chaconas has been keeping me updated on revisionist history. She has found an old book (early 20th-century, I believe) about a gentleman named Gould, who evidently had stories to tell related to characters in the Lincoln assassination story. I'll get more details and share them, but so far, here are a couple:

When the "Booth mummy" was supposedly making the rounds in the carnival circles, one of the couples who owned him apparently slept in their small carnival wagon - one on each side of the mummy. Given the toxic chemicals in that carcass at the time, I wonder what their ailments might have been?

This "factoid" I love! The book credits Dr. Mudd with discovering that mosquitoes carry the dreaded yellow fever strain. Walter Reed must be spinning in his grave.

(08-26-2017 02:53 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Joan Chaconas has been keeping me updated on revisionist history. She has found an old book (early 20th-century, I believe) about a gentleman named Gould, who evidently had stories to tell related to characters in the Lincoln assassination story. I'll get more details and share them, but so far, here are a couple:

When the "Booth mummy" was supposedly making the rounds in the carnival circles, one of the couples who owned him apparently slept in their small carnival wagon - one on each side of the mummy. Given the toxic chemicals in that carcass at the time, I wonder what their ailments might have been?

This "factoid" I love! The book credits Dr. Mudd with discovering that mosquitoes carry the dreaded yellow fever strain. Walter Reed must be spinning in his grave.

1) Dr. Walter Reed can rest in peace. He found that the female Aedes mosquito was responsible for yellow fever transmission in 1901. Dr. Mudd noted was a hero treating yellow fever at Fort Jefferson, and noted southeastern Caribbean trade winds were a factor producing increased infections whenever there were breezes and rain from that direction. In a letter to his wife on October 27, 1867 wrote "...in the most eligible position for the spread of the poison, owing to the presence of the wind...varying only a few degrees."

2) The mummy was shuttled around carnivals when Finis Bates was unable to sell it. When Bates died his widow finally unloaded it in 1931 for $8,000 to carnival barker Johnny Harker and yes, both he and his wife slept every night beside the mummy. Pictures in Dave Taylor's BoothieBarn show his wife lecturing without gloves (Johnny took the tickets)--between cleaning the cadaver with Vaseline and combing his hair--in both Life and Life magazines.

$8,000t was a lot of money back in 1931, middle of depression.
Sleeping with the mummy beside them, a lot of bad jokes there.

(08-26-2017 10:13 PM)Houmes Wrote:  

(08-26-2017 02:53 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Joan Chaconas has been keeping me updated on revisionist history. She has found an old book (early 20th-century, I believe) about a gentleman named Gould, who evidently had stories to tell related to characters in the Lincoln assassination story. I'll get more details and share them, but so far, here are a couple:

When the "Booth mummy" was supposedly making the rounds in the carnival circles, one of the couples who owned him apparently slept in their small carnival wagon - one on each side of the mummy. Given the toxic chemicals in that carcass at the time, I wonder what their ailments might have been?

This "factoid" I love! The book credits Dr. Mudd with discovering that mosquitoes carry the dreaded yellow fever strain. Walter Reed must be spinning in his grave.

1) Dr. Walter Reed can rest in peace. He found that the female Aedes mosquito was responsible for yellow fever transmission in 1901. Dr. Mudd noted was a hero treating yellow fever at Fort Jefferson, and noted southeastern Caribbean trade winds were a factor producing increased infections whenever there were breezes and rain from that direction. In a letter to his wife on October 27, 1867 wrote "...in the most eligible position for the spread of the poison, owing to the presence of the wind...varying only a few degrees."

The Cuban physician Carlos Finlay had already figured this in 1881:
"Finlay's work, carried out during the 1870s, finally came to prominence in 1900. He was the first to theorize, in 1881, that a mosquito was a carrier, now known as a disease vector, of the organism causing yellow fever: a mosquito that bites a victim of the disease could subsequently bite and thereby infect a healthy person. He presented this theory at the 1881 International Sanitary Conference, where it was well received. A year later Finlay identified a mosquito of the genus Aedes as the organism transmitting yellow fever. His theory was followed by the recommendation to control the mosquito population as a way to control the spread of the disease.
His hypothesis and exhaustive proofs were confirmed nearly twenty years later by the Walter Reed Commission of 1900. Finlay went on to become the chief health officer of Cuba from 1902 to 1909. Although Dr. Reed received much of the credit in history books for 'beating' yellow fever, Reed himself credited Dr. Finlay with the discovery of the yellow fever vector, and thus how it might be controlled. Dr. Reed often cited Finlay's papers in his own articles and gave him credit for the discovery in his personal correspondence."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Finlay

(I apologize if I got something wrong...)

(08-27-2017 11:31 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  (I apologize if I got something wrong...)

You got it all right!

Do you know the title and/or author of the book?
Is it available in the Internet Archives?

(08-28-2017 01:43 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Do you know the title and/or author of the book?
Is it available in the Internet Archives?

I have been trying to get that information out of Joan for several weeks, but she can't seem to remember.

She's not alone.

Finally! The book with these references on the mummy and also Dr. Mudd is entitled Jay Gould's Million Dollar Gems and was written by Della Gould Emmons. After reading a lengthy bio on findagrave https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg...d=76843771 I was finally able to remember this Jay Gould as opposed to the financier.

I couldn't find a copy in the Internet Archives, but I did find this on Amazon, but a copy is currently unavailable on Amazon or
AbeBooks.

https://www.amazon.com/Jay-Goulds-Millio...uld+emmons

I finally found a copy on Amazon, only 1 available. See link above. You just have to be patient and persistent.
A little to much $ for me. I wonder, based on the author's middle name, if there is a family connection?

No copies could I find on ABE Books