Revival in Tombstone

The old ghost town of Tombstone, Ariz, was having a minor boom. The boom was due to arthritis, asthma and sinus trouble, all of which are still medical mysteries.

The boom began last August, when Dr. Peter Paul Zinn, 52, a onetime doctor for copper-mining Phelps Dodge Corp., came over from Bisbee and started a medical center featuring inhalations of chlorine gas.

Man in the Mountain. Dr. Zinn got the idea from Father Roger Aull, 61-year-old retired Passionist priest who lives in the mountains near Silver City. Father Aull once had an abscessed lung which got well after chlorine treatments. Father Aull had studied medicine before entering the priesthood; he bought a machine that would make safe, weak chlorine gas from salt water, and gave the treatments to others. In spite of clerical and medical criticism, he has been doing it for some ten years. Most doctors regard a chlorine treatment as hocuspocus: no one has explained how it can possibly act against disease.

Dr. Zinn pooh-poohed the system, too, until his own wife and mother-in-law, who had arthritis, were helped by Father Aull. Then he began to make careful before-&-after bone and blood checkups on other Aull patients. Finally he was convinced. Dr. Zinn bought 14 chlorine machines, hired the abandoned Bank of Tombstone building.

People in Town. Nobody knows how big Tombstone was in the early '80s, when silver mining was at its height. Some say 12,000. By 1940, the population was down to 800. The citizens mined a little, published the weekly Epitaph, lived mostly in the past, lolling against the boarded-up false fronts. A few were guides who showed visitors around the adobe Bird Cage Theater museum (tour: 25^), a combined variety house, saloon, gambling house and brothel, where Sheriff John H. Behan and friends used to sit on the right and Marshal Wyatt Earp (who wanted to be sheriff) and his cohort sat on the left.

Nobody knows how big the town is now.

It is still far from its former glory, but all the habitable houses are full and so are two new tourist courts with a capacity of 200. Many arthritics, unable to find room in Tombstone, motor the 72 miles from Tucson or the 20-odd miles from Bisbee and Benson to take the treatment. The old Crystal Palace Bar is in full swing and sick people wander around visiting the site of the OK Corral and gawking at Million Dollar Stope, a caved-in mine near the middle of town.

The treatment is simple. Patients all sit around in one big room and breathe chlo rine from individual tubes, regulating the strength by moving the tubes to &; from their faces. People with arthritis and sinus trouble take it strong (along with coughs, sneezes and watery eyes); people with asthma get it mixed with oxygen.

Medical experts are dubious about the value of the Tombstone treatment, as far as the patients are concerned. But it has certainly revived Tombstone.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.