William Kluge, Obituary/Death NoticePorter County obituaries and death notices . . . .
William Kluge
THE VOHDOO'S VICTIM.
Wm. Kluge Dies While Going Through The Tortures of a Vohdoo.
On Friday night, an accident occurred at Mr. D. Lindahl's that resulted in the untimely death of Wm. Kluge, a properous butcher of Michigan City. While in the act of skinning a calf, that knife, that Mr. Kulge was using, slipped and penetrated the inner side of his left leg a few inches below the knee, severing a large vein and piercing one of the main arteries, known as the Posterior Tibial. Medical aid was at once, but on account fo the great difficulty in ligating the this artery at the point wounded, and an assisting physician being unobtainable, the operation was postponed until the following morning, the hemmorhage in the meantime being temporarily controlled by bandages and a tourniquet.
On Saturday Drs. Mullen, Marr and Corey successfully tied the bleeding vessels, by making an incision through the calf of the leg from behind, and thus reaching the artery, rather than attempting it at the side and wounded point. The patient rallied from the operation and at the visit of the attending physician in the evening was pronounced to be doing well. He rested quietly until 3 o'clock a. m., when awakened by a personage who figured thereafter in the case even unto its fatal termination. This was none other than one of those mysterious diviners, known as Vohdoos or charm doctors, who holds sway in Michigan City, and who had come not uninvited to practice his art. Now it is that this healer, pregnant with supreme unction, wonderful witchery, and stale whiskey, proceeds to restore the wasted energies of the afflicted man. He first rouses him from a needed slumber, and gives him to drink of the same elixer that lent odor to his own foul breath. This donw, he brings forth a chain, and with ghoulish gaze, stretches from head to foot the charmed links, measuring and re-measuring the victim; next a parchment replete with the mysteries of the Vohdoo, the crone, and the wizard is unfolded out of which he reads and in a commanding voice charges, no evil genius to intercept his all wise purpose, and finally in a subdued voice, proclaims the man saved, snatched from the jaws of death, by his triumphant act. But not so for he had already began to sink; whiskey and excitement had done their work, and the man who a few minutes before had been sleeping, was now throwing himself wildly upon his bed. The air in the small apartment is stiffling; the heart is agitated and throbs and struggles to perform its function, and last weary and opposed on all sides it fails, and a life suddenly goes out. While the charlatan might have the benefit of doubt in his favor, it is evidently a case of meddlesome quackery that deprived a fellow being of his life. When rest was most needed, when excitement should have been wholly removed, when effort up the patients part would have be fatal, all was percipitated by this imposter. Though the law may not met out to him justice, the case may serve as a warning to the many who are at the present time seeking the services of such rascals, and throwing away their money and lives to satisfy ignorance, superstition, mysticism and Vohdooism.
Newspaper: The Tribune
Date of Publication: December 27, 1888
Volume Number: 5
Issue Number: 37
Page: 1
Column(s): 5
Key to Newspaper Publication Locations:
Newspapers Published in Chesterton, Porter County, Indiana
Chesterton Tribune
The Tribune
Westchester Tribune
Newspapers Published in Valparaiso, Porter County, Indiana
Porter County Vidette
Practical Observer
Valparaiso Practical Observer
Vidette and Republic
Western Ranger
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Obituary/death notice transcribed by Steven R. Shook