TWELVE YEARS IN A BATH.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 22, 21 October 1907, Page 10

TWELVE YEARS IN A BATH.

A tepid bath, which has lasted over 12 years, has, says the Berlin-correspondent of tho "Daily Telegraph," just como to an end in tho state hospital at Brunswick, owing to tho dea,th of a patient named Ferdinand Schlimme, a bricklayer, who injured ' his - spine through a fall in November, 1894. Tho lower portion of his-body was completely paralysed through the accident, whilst his stomach and other organs were : badly injured. Several operations proved unsuccessful. The patient sliowod remarkable tenacity of life, but suffered,excruciating pain, which rendered his stay in bed unendurable. Tho surgeons therefore decided to render existence more comfortable by immorsing him: up.to the breast in a tank, through which water, ran continuously. There ho has lain ever since, with a supporting band- round his broast and his head on air cushions; He soon became accustomed to the position, and as his ijands wero free ho learned to knit and to carve wooden toys, becoming eventually so oxpert that he earned'a good subsistence, and was ablo to support his aged mother. This longthenod stay in the water, however, induced tuberculosis,' from which lie died.