A Gold Cure Too Late for Robert J. Walker
A nephew of James G. Blaine dies in a Tacoma hospital, and the Olympia Tribune wonders whether a dubious 'bichloride of gold' treatment could have saved him.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Robert J. Walker, nephew of Secretary of State James G. Blaine, leaped from a window of the Fanny Paddock Hospital in Tacoma and killed himself while laboring with delirium tremens. He would perhaps be living today, the Tribune suggests, if he had been brought to Olympia to try the bichloride of gold treatment. If we mistake not, he belongs to the old West Virginia family of Walkers and is a brother to John Brisben Walker, editor and proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Magazine. His father and another brother are said to be citizens of Montana at present. The name of the unfortunate man is the same as President Polk's secretary of the treasury, whose descendants live in Washington City.
“would perhaps be living today if he had been brought to Olympia to try the bichloride of gold treatment.”
The Tribune’s suggestion that a 'bichloride of gold' cure in Olympia might have saved Walker shows how alcoholism was treated as both a moral failing and a commercial opportunity. Modern medicine approaches addiction as a health condition, but stigma and uneven access to treatment still shape who survives.
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