-
Dr. Joseph Lister was the person who realized that a caustic substance could be used to kill germs during surgical procedures. Lister would spray a solution of carbolic acid onto patients and found that that this prevented most patients from getting infections.
-
Bars also served as places where gambling took place, whether informal card games or actual betting and games of chance. This New York bar was also a place, judging by this illustration, where the bartender could mix drinks by pouring them from glasses held over two feet apart.
-
Taverns were gathering places that often led a barely-disguised life as brothels, where customers could pay for the amorous services of a prostitute.
-
Carbolic acid, better known today as phenol, was a caustic developed from processing coal tar. Used in surgery and industrial applications, it was poisonous in large amounts.
-
Mount Vernon’s nightlife district was known as “The Bowery” around 1912, after New York City’s notorious red light district.
-
Rose (or Rosa) Lewis was born in Mount Vernon, but moved often throughout the region during her short, restless life. In 1913, just months after her arrest in Mount Vernon, she married the equally aimless Cecil Byers. Less than a year after the marriage, Lewis would be dead from a second carbolic acid poisoning.
-
Oddly enough, another troubled Rose Lewis passed through the area at this same time. This Rose Lewis performed as a musician and trapeze artist in The California Girls Burlesque Company, a touring musical revue, and was praised in the Mansfield newspaper for her outstanding talents. Shortly after these performances, this Rose Lewis left the stage and entered a state insane asylum. Brought out briefly to visit family in 1920, the former actress also killed herself with carbolic acid, to avoid being returned to the state hospital.
Newspack Team More by adminnewspack