Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-12-28
The Ghost of a Sensation.

1T has long been known to surgeons
that when a limb has been cut off the
sufferer does not lose the consciousness of
its existence, This has been found TO be
true in nearly every such case. Only
about five per cent of the men who have
suffered amputation never have any feel
ing of the part as being still present. OF
the rest, there are few who i'm time
come TO forget the missing member,
while the remainder seem TO retain a
sense Of its existence so vivid as to be
more definite and intrusive than is that of
its truly living fellow member.
A person in this condition is haunted,
as ii were, by a constant or inconstant
fractional phantom of SO much of him
self as has been Topped away--an unseen
ghost of the lost part, and sometimes u
ghost made sorelv inconvenient bv the
fact that, while but family felt at times,
il is at others actually called to his atten-
ton by the pains or irritations which ii
appears to suffer from a blow on the
stump or a change in the weather.
There Is something almost tragical,
something CHASTITY, in the notion OF these
thousands of spirit limbs haunting rs
many good soldiers, and every now and
/ then tormenting them with the disap-
pOintments which arise when, the memory
being off guard for a moment, the keen
sense OF the limbs presence betrayS the
man into some effort, the failure of which
of sudden reminds him OF his loss.
Many persons feel the lost limb as cx-
listing the moment they awaken from the
merciful stupor of the ether given to de-
stroy the torments of the knife; others
come slowly to this consciousness in days
or weeks, and when the wound has heal
ed but as a rule, the more sound and
serylceable the stump especially il an ar
tificial limb be worn, the more likely is
the man to feel family the presence of his
shorn member Sometimes blow onthe
stump will reawaken such consciousness,
or, as happened in one case, a reamputa-
ton higher up the limb will summon il
anew into seeming existence.
In many, the limb may be recalled to
the man by irritating the nerves in its
stump. Every doctor knows that when
any part of a nerve is excited by pinch,
a tap, or by eectricity--whichi is an alto
gether harmless mcans-the pain, if it be
nerve of feeling, is felt as if il were
really caused in the part TO which the
nerve finally passes. A familiar illustra-
ton is met with when we hurt the crazy
bone" behind the elbow. This crazy-bone
is merely the ulnar nerve, which gives
sensation TO the third and fourth fingers,
and in which latter parts we feel the
numbing pain of a blow on the main
nerve. IF we were to divide this
nerve below the elbow, the pain
would still seem to be in the fingers, nor
would ii alter the case were the arm cut
off When, therefore, the current OF a
battery is turned upon the nerves OF an
arm stump, the irritation caused in the
divided nerves is carried to the brain, and
there referred at once TO all the regions Of
the lost limb, from which, when entire,
these nerves brought those impressions OF
touch or pain which the brain converts
into sensations. AS the electric current
disturbs the nerves, the limb is sometimes
called back to scnsory being with start
ling reality.
On one occasion the shoulder was thus
electrified three inches above the point
where the arm had been cut of. For two
wears the man had ceased to be conscious
of the limb AS the current passed, al
though ignorant M its possible effect, he
started up. crying aloud, "Oh, the hand,
the hand 1" and he tried to seize it with
the living grasp If the sound fingers. No
resurrection Of the dead, no answer OF "A
summoned spirit, could have been more
startling. As the current was broken the
lost part faded again, only to be recalled
by the same means This man had ceased
to feel his limb. With others il is pres
cnce never absent save in slcep.-DF.
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