Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-01-05
Miscellany,
me sensation of Absent Limbs.

The sensation oil Absent Liiibs'
1t has long been known % 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 still being present. VI
the rest, there are few who in time
come toforget the missing member, VINE
the remainder seem to retain sense Vi
its existence so vivid as to be more dehn-
;te and intrusive than is that of its truly
living fellow-member.
A person in this condition is haunted,
as it were, by constant or incontent
fractional phantom of SO much of HIM
self as has been Topped away-an unseen
ghost of the lost part, and sometimes
presence made sorely inconvenient by
the fact that while but family felt at
times, it is at others acutely called to his
attentions by the pains or irritations
which it appears to suffer from a blow on
the stump or change in the weather.
There is something almost tragical,
something CHASTITY in the notion Of these
thousands of spirit limbs haunting as
many good soldiers, and every now and
then tormenting them with the disap-
pointments which arise when, the memo
ry being off guard for 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 ex-
isting the moment they awaken from the
mercful stupor of ether given to destroy
the torments Of the knife others come
slowly TO this consciousness in days or
weeks, and when the wound has heal
ed but, as rule, the more sound and
serviceable the stump, especially if an ar
tifcial limb be worn, the more likely is
the man to feel family the presence Of
his shorn member. Sometimes a blow
on the stump will reawaken such con-
seriousness, or, as happened in one case,
reamputation higher up on the limb
will summon it anew into seeming exist
ence.
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 a pinch,
a tap, or by electricity-which is an al
together harmless means-the pain, if it
be nerve of feeling, is felt as if it 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. The 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 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 it
alter the case were the arm cut Off When
therefore, the current of battery is
turned upon the nerves of an arm-stump
the irritation causedi in the divided nerves
is carried to the brain, and there refer
red 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 eclectric current
disturbs the nerves, the limb is some
times called back to sensory being with
startling reality.
On one occasion the shoulder was thus
electrified three inches above the point
where the arm had been cut off For two
years the man had ceased to be conscious
of the limb. As the current passed, al,
though Ignorant of its possible effects, he
started up, crying aloud, ooh, the hand,
the hand !" and tried to seize it with the
living grasp of the sound fingers. No
resurrection of the dead, no answer
of 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 presence never absent save
in sleep. '1f, says one man, 81 am more
sure of the leg which amt than the one
that are, | guess should be about cor