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This Week in Rockland: Newspaper Excerpts: Flashback Friday: Week of February 16

February 14, 1874 – 150 YEARS AGO
Rockland County Journal

AROUND HOME
   ☞ A powerful steam tug boat of the Knickerbocker Ice Co.’s, with a barge in tow, forced its way through the ice to Rockland Lake on Wednesday.
   ☞ The Mountain Institute, T. W. Suffern, principal, has now fifty-six pupils. It can accommodate but sixty-four. The Institute is successful and popular.
   ☞ A jolly lot of Haverstrawers recently made the midnight air of our village vocal with the expressed determination that they wouldn’t “go home till morning.”
   ☞ A runaway horse collided with a lot of dry goods, at Merritt & Ross’s corner, on Thursday, and caused a heavy fall in these articles. Maybe they can now be bought cheaper in consequence.
   ☞ Abram Merritt will soon set back the front of his building, and it is his intention to fit up the store front with plate glass. The front is to be uniform with Blauvelt’s new building.
   ☞ Wednesday was rather a bad day for fat men in Nyack. Our good natured friend Jacob T. Eckerson was spilled while making a short turn around a corner, and R. P. Eells went head-over-heels, by his horse starting prematurely.
   ☞ A few days ago a team of horses attached to a sleigh in which were James H. Blauvelt and wife, of Blauveltville, ran away and upset the sleigh and its contents. The lady and gentleman were not much hurt, but the surgery on the sleigh will cost about $30.

February 15, 1934 – 90 YEARS AGO
Pearl River News

Experts Making Study of Gray Goose at N.Y.U. — Rotary Principle of Plane Is Endorsed by Experts. Few Changes Made in Design. To Be Brought Back to Orangeburg. Engineers Improve Ideas of Caldwell
[Image: Aeronautical Engineers Study Rotary Principle of Gray Goose, Invention of Pearl Riverite. Pearl River News, Feb. 1934.]
       Under the supervision of the President of the Guggenheim School of Aeronautics at New York University, four of the nation’s leading airplane design experts are working on the Gray Goose, invention of Jonathan Caldwell of Middletown Road in this village.
       Following a trial attempt to get the machine from the ground a little more than a month ago, experts and instructors at the Guggenheim School showed much interest in the plane, and Caldwell gave his permission to have it brought to the University where work and study are being done with it.
       While many changes have been wrought in the outward appearance of the Gray Goose, the rotary principle has been retained.
       It is reported that all the experts who have viewed the plane in operation have endorsed the principle of rotary motion which is expected by those in authority to revolutionize flying.
       The President of the Guggenheim School has declared that the possibilities of the Gray Goose, as a commercial plane of the future, surpasses the conception of the average mind.
       It is claimed by Caldwell that the obstacle of the vertical lift, whereby the plane can rise vertically rather than taxi down a runway, has been surmounted and while tests are still being made by experts at the school, mechanics are busy correcting, improving the design and incorporating some important developments on the machine.
       The rotary principle whereby motion is gained through revolving wings designed to whirl blade fashion has been improved, and engineers claim the plane is perfected fully one hundred years before its time.
       Students and instructors, along with aeronautical experts at the university, have been utilizing the use of having the machine nearby to perfect models for experimentation in the wind tunnels at the school where flaws in flying machines, due to air pockets in the atmosphere, may be corrected.
       The progress made thus far by experts at the school brings the the dreams of Caldwell nearer realization. For 25 years he has planned and worked on a plane that he believed would revolutionize aircraft building. Lacking financial support and working through many setbacks and skepticism of people who have seen the plane, Caldwell has patiently labored with his ideas.
       For 17 years he studied the flight of birds on the wing. Books were all right for the technical obstacles to be overcome, but books could not explain the mysteries of the motion of flying birds. More than seven years were spent in building miniature plane models until he worked out the type of model from which he constructed the Gray Goose of the present.
       It was learned that when the plane is thoroughly patented and perfected it is to be brought back to its hangar at Orangeburg.
       Many local mechanics have worked and studied on the Gray Goose, among them being Carl Christophel of Pearl River, who spent some months on the construction of the plane.

February 16, 1974– 50 YEARS AGO
The Journal News

PEARL RIVER DOCTOR PRESCRIBES BY COMPUTER
       The day is not far off when computers may prescribe the medication a patient will receive during a hospital stay. Dr. Carlos Bolano, of Pearl River, director of Microbiology at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, uses a computer to choose the most effective antibiotics to combat infections.
       Laboratory technicians and medical technologists isolate cultures of bacteria taken from the site of an infection and perform routine tests to identify the organism and to judge its resistance or susceptibility to various antibiotics. Their findings are noted on cards which are analyzed, sorted and comp[il]ed by the computer. A scanning computer is used [and] clerical personnel indicate the results with pencil marks, eliminating the need for keypunch operation.
       Dr. Bolano has been able through the system to determine which antibiotics are most likely to be successful against certain bacteria.
       Dr. Bolano claims the reporting process acts as an early warning system by indicating infection trends before they become serious, enabling physicians and staff to nip in the bud any potential epidemic.
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