The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1874-06-11
NUMBER 6.
CuriOsities Of Lunacy.

There are cases where blows on the
head have benefited the brain, and pro-
duced extraordinary changes for the bet
ter. Mabillon was almost an idiot at the
age Of twenty-six. He fell down.a stone
staircase, fractured his skull, and was
trepanned. From that moment he be-
came genius. DR.. Prichard mentions a
case of three brothers, who were all nearly
idiots. One of them was injured on the
head, and from that time he frightened
up, and is now successful barrfster.
Wallenstein, too, they say, was mere
fool, till he fell out of window, and
awoke with enlarged capabilities. A pa
tient inan asylum was the victim of many
delusions. He was paying off the national
debt, going into partnership with Baron
Rothschild, and forming lodge of female
Free Masons. One day an epileptic pa
tient, irritated at being perpetually asked
to buy imaginary shares, gave him tre-
mendous blow on the bridge of the nose.
From that time he improved rapidly, and
acknowledged that the blow had had a
sobering effect, and had quite knocked
the nonsense out of him.
There is no doubt that this was the
secret of that cruel, old remedy for mad
ness, the circulating swing, mentioned
favorably by physicians of the last cen
tury. This horrible swing was a small
box fixed upon pivot, and worked by a
windlass. The "infexible" maniac, or
the maniac expecting a paroxysm, was
firmly strapped in sitting or recumbent
posture. The box was then whirled round
at the average velocity of hundred
revolutions minute, and its beneficial
effect was supposed to be heightened by
reversing the motion every five or six
minutes, and stopping it occasionally with
sudden jerk. The results of this swing
which occasionally brought on conclusion
of the brain, were profound and protracted
sleep, intense perspiratiOn, mental ex-
haustion, and not unnatural horror of
any recurrence to the same remedy, which
left moral impression, which acted as a
permanent restraint. That the results
were often beneficial we have indisputa-
BILE evidence.
The cases of suspended consciousness
after brain injury are well worthy OF at
tention. A man who wakes out of a
sleep is conscious of lapse of time, and
can generally even guess its duration, but
the man struck on the brain is often un-
conscious of any lapse. A man was
struck in the street, and was afterwards
delirious. He was unconscious after the
blow for fourteen days. He was then
delirious and maniacal for ten weeks.
When he became more tranquil they
brought him to the asylum in strait
coat. He soon recovered, but when he
became conscious he had entirely forgot
ten the fourteen days trance and the ten
weeks delirium and mania. At the
battle of the Nile, an English captain
was struck on the head by shot and be-
came unconscious. He was taken home
with the wounded, and remained in
Greenwich Hospital for fifteen months
deprived of his sense and speech. Al
the end of that period an operation was
performed, and the brain relieved from
the pressure. He instantly rose from his
bed and continued the orders to the sail.
ors, which had been so abruptly inter
rupted fifteen months before.