[The Miracle Mongers an Expos by Harry Houdini]@TWC D-Link bookThe Miracle Mongers an Expos CHAPTER THREE 2/8
I regret that I cannot give the date, but it is evident from the long form of the letters that it was quite early.
This is the first mention I have found of the hot-oven effect afterwards made famous by Chabert. WONDERFUL PHENOMENON A correspondent in France writes as follows: "Paris has, for some days, rung with relations of the wonderful exploits of a Spaniard in that city, who is endowed with qualities by which he resists the action of very high degrees of heat, as well as the influence of strong chemical reagents.
Many histories of the trials to which he has been submitted before a Commission of the Institute and Medical School, have appeared in the public papers; but the public waits with impatience for the report to be made in the name of the Commission by Professor Pinel. The subject of these trials is a young man, a native of Toledo, in Spain, 23 years of age, and free of any apparent peculiarities which can announce anything remarkable in the organization of his skin; after examination, one would be rather disposed to conclude a peculiar softness than that any hardness or thickness of the cuticle existed, either naturally or from mechanical causes.
Nor was there any circumstance to indicate that the person had been previously rubbed with any matter capable of resisting the operation of the agents with which he was brought in contact. This man bathed for the space of five minutes, and without any injury to his sensibility or the surface of the skin, his legs in oil, heated at 97 degrees of Reaumur (250 degrees of Fahrenheit) and with the same oil, at the same degree of heat, he washed his face and superior extremities.
He held, for the same space of time, and with as little inconvenience, his legs in a solution of muriate of soda, heated to 102 of the same scale, (261 1/2 degrees Fahr.) He stood on and rubbed the soles of his feet with a bar of hot iron heated to a white heat; in this state he held the iron in his hands and rubbed the surface of his tongue. He gargled his mouth with concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids, without the smallest injury or discoloration; the nitric acid changed the cuticle to a yellow color; with the acids in this state he rubbed his hands and arms.
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