The Watchman And Southron

Correspondence Chicago Times Aug. 10, 1881.

The World's Epileptic Institute.

While passing through St. Joseph, Mo.; and having heard a great deal about the World's Epileptic Institute located here, I concluded to pay the celebrated institution a short visit. We were met by Dr. Richmond, the proprietor, who has gained a reputation as broad as the land. He is a rather small, yet prepossessing man, of very affable and gentlemanly manners. He gave us a hearty welcome, and took great pains in showing us through his palatial and mammoth institution. It is a five-story building, 200x150 feet, with basement, and contains over three hundred rooms, and can accommodate five hundred patients, and each and every room is furnished in the most elegant and lavish manner. But we will begin at the office, which is a large room furnished with rosewood furniture throughout. In the office are thousands of photographs of those who have been benefited by the Nervine. The walls are elegantly papered, and are profusely decorated with rich and costly pictures, relieved here and there by busts in stone and bronze of eminent men of this and other countries. In connection with the institute is a mammoth printing house and bindery, occupying six or seven large rooms, and a score of presses are kept running night and day turning out work for the doctor. The office is one of the finest and most complete in the west, and he has the rooms decorated, carpeted and trimmed up with as much care and luxury as in his own private office. On the first floor of this mammoth building is the doctor's private office, the printing department, bindery, tank room, packing, bottling and consultation rooms, barber shop, drug store, etc., all of which are fitted up regardless of expense. The second floor has the hotel office, dining, billiard and cooking rooms, many guest chambers and several parlors. The third and fourth floors are all rooms, all of which are furnished with Brussels carpets and the finest furniture. The billiard room has six tables all of which are free to the guests of the house and their friends. The bath room is large and neat, and is also free to guests. The entire building is surrounded on the east and south by an elegant five acre park, in which are lovely trees, beds of rich and rare plants, gravel walks and drives, delicious arbors, and most beautiful summer house. There are also a number of fountains that add wonderfully to the beauty of the park, which is truly one of the most lovely and attractive in the western country and the Institute has no equal for luxury and comfort in the world. Everything is perfection, and the visitor is at once charmed with the entire place and its surroundings. An idea of the immensity of the doctor's business may be given when we say that on the day we visited the Institute he showed us to his express room, and we saw the expressman take goods labelled to the following places, to say nothing of hundreds of orders from all quarters of America; Lyons, France; Geneva, Switzerland; Madrid, Spain; Brussels, Belgium; Cape Town, Africa; Shanghai, China; Yokohama, Japan; Bombay, India; Melbourne, Australia. The doctor employs hundreds of men and women in his Institute in the several branches, aside from the immense force required to conduct the hotel. It is worth a visit, and Dr. Richmond extends to all a cordial invitation to come and see him. He and his wonderful medical discovery have given to St. Joseph a good name all over the habitable globe.