Charles Willard FIELD

                   EXTRACT FROM HATTIE SCHRAM
ITEM OF HISTORY: CHARLES FIELD OF MOUND CITY MO BROUGHT HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER
HALLIE AGED THREE YEARS ON TUESDAY TO SAVANNAH TO TRY THE MERITS OF THE NELSON
MADSTONE.  THE LITTLE GIRL WAS BADLY BITTEN ON THE FACE BY A PET DOG.  MRS
ARMEDE HUMBER WHO HAS POSSESSION THE MADSTONESINCE THE DEATH OF HER FATHER
APPLIED THE STONE AND IT ADHERED TO TEN HOURS.  MR FIELD RETURNED TO HIS HOME
WELL SATISFIED WITH HIS TRIP HERE [SAVANNAH DEMOCRAT APR 1908]
NOTE: THE MADSTONE MENTIONED ABOVE WAS THE ONLY HOPE NORTHWEST MISSOURIANS HAS
AGAINST THE DREADED HYDROPHOBIA SO PREVALENT DURING THE SUMMER MONTHS OF
PIONEER DAYS.  THE NESON STONE PRIED FROM THE HEART OF A MALE DEER AND SENT TO
TWIN BROTHERS, JOHN AND JAMES NELSON OF SAVANNAH MO FROM THE EAST INDIES A GIFT
FROM A MAN WHOM THEY HAD BEFRIENDED IN A TIME OF TROUBLE GAVE THEM FAME FAR AND
WIDE. THE STONE WAS LATER INHERITED BY MRS ARMEDE HUMBER WHO CONTINUED THE
RECORDS FROM 1881 TO 1931 WHEN A PREVENTION AND CURE FOR RABIES WAS DISCOVERED.
DURING THE TIME MORE THAN 2,000 PATIENTS WERE TREATED MANY WHO LIVED TO TELL
THE TALE.  THE STONE NOW IN 1979 IS OWNED BY MR AND MRS RALPH METCALF OF ST
JOSEPH MO.
Item of Interest:
Madstone For Rabies
Jake Strode brought a madstone from an Asian Seaport and gave it to John T. Nelson in 1846.  Mr. Nelson moved to Savannah in 1848 and within a few years the madstone was recognized as a cure for rabies throughout Northwest Missouri.  The stone would adhere to the wound when drawing out the poison.  The stone was then placed in milk and as the poison left thye stone the milk turned green.
When Hallie Stevens was about three and a half years old she was bitten by a rabid dog.  The people who owned the madstone lived in Savannah at that time.  Father Charles Willard Field and Mother Minnie took her to these people, driving a horse and buggy.  The stone adhered and drew the poison.  This was long before there were any shots to prevent rabies.  Hallie called on these people in 1971 and they have a record of her case.  She has the scars on her cheek, today, where she was bitten.
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Metcalf, 425 N, 25th Street, St. Joseph, Mo. received the madstone in 1941 from Mrs. Armida Nelson Humber, who received it from her father, John T. Nelson.
When Charles Willard Field passed away from typhoid fever, Minnie Nora moved to her widowed fathers home.