New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-11-30
The Sensation of Absent Limbs

1t has long been known to surgeons thai
when 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 feeling Of the part as being still present
VI the rest, there are few who in tune come
to forget the missing member, while the re
malnder seem te retain sense of its existence
so vivid as to be more definite and intrusive
than is that Of it's truly living fellow member.
person in this condition is haunted, as il
were, by constant or iricoustaat fractiona
phantom of so much IF himself as has been
Topped away-an unseen ghost of the lost
part, aud sometimes a presence made sorely
inconvenient by the fact that while but family
felt at times, it is at others acutely called t.
his attention by the pains or irritations which
it appears TO suffer from q blow on the stump
or change In the weather.
There is something almost tragical, some.
thing CHASTITY, in the notion of these thousands
of spirit limbs haunting az many good soldiers.
and every now and then tormenting them with
the disappontInents which arise when, the
memory being off guard for moment, the
keen sense of the limbs presence betrays the
man into some effort, the failure of which of a
sudden reminds him of his loss
Many persons feel the lost limb as existing
the moment they awaken from the msrcful
stupor of the ether given to DESTROY the tor.
ments OF the knife others come slowly to this
consciousness in days or weeks and when the
wound has healed but, as rule, the more
sound and serviceable the stump especially if
an artificial limb be worn, the more likely is
the man to feel family the presence of his shorn
member Sometimes blow on the stump will
reawaken such c0nciousness, or as happened
In one case, reamputatiOn higher up the limb
Will summon 1t 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 q nerve is
excited by pinch, a tap, or eectricity-whicb
is an altogether harmless means-the pain, if it
tie nerve OF feeling, is felt as if it were really
caused In the part to which the nerve finally
passes. A familiar illustration 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 witch latter parts We feel
the numbing pain Of blow on the main nerve.
III We were to divide this nerve below the elbow
the pain would still seem to be in the fingers.
nor would 1t alter the case were the arm cut off
When, therefore, the current of a. battery is
turned upon the nerves of an arm tump the
irritation caused in the divided nerves is carried
TO the brain, and there referred at once to all
the regions oil the iOSt lime from which, when
entire these nerves brought those impressions
of touch or pain which the brain converts into
sensations. As the electric current distur!s
the nerves, the limb is sometimes called back
10 seDsory beng with startling reality.
On one occasion the shoulder was thus cleo
tried three inches above the point where the
arm had been cut off, For two years the man
had ceased to DO conscious of the limb. As the
current passed, although ignorant Of its posi-
bic effects, he started up, crying aloud, ooh.
the hand !" and tried to seize it with the living
grasp the sound fingers. No resurrection of the
dead, no answer Off 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 it is a presence never
absent save in sleep. If" says one man, 90
should say, am more sure of the leg which
amt than OF the one that are, guess should
be about correct '-From Phantom Limbs, by
DR.. 5. Weir Mitchell, in the December number
Of Lfpp'ncot's Magazine.