Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1874-04-03
MIR. Summers Sufferlngs.

In the course of recent lecture In Bos-,
ton, on NERVOUS Force" DIR. Brown.
Sequard said, "When, in 1857, saw Mr..
Charles Sumner for the first time, he had,
as you know, received q terrible blow
upon the head. His spine as he was sit
ting had been bent in two places, the
Uranium fortunately resisting. This bend
ing of the spine in two places had pro-
duced there the effects of sprain. When
l saw him in Paris he had recovered
altogether from the first effects of the
blow. He suffered only from the two
sprains of the spine and, perhaps, a slight
irritation of the spinal cord ITSELF He
had two troubles at that time. One was
that he could not make use of his brain at
all. He could not read newspaper;
could not write a letter. He was in
frightful state as regards the activity of
the mind, as every effort there was most
painful to him. 1t seemed to him at
times as if his head would burst; there
seemed tn be some great force within
pushing the pieces away from one another.
Any emotion was painful to him. Even
in conversation, anything that called for
depth of thought or feeling caused him
suffering, so that we had TO be very care
full with him. He had another trouble
resulting from the sprain which was at
the level of the lowest dursal vertebra.
The irritation produced was intense and
the result very painful. When he tried to
move forward he was compelled to push
one foot slowly and gently forward but
few inches, and then drag the other foot to
level with the first, holding his back at the
same time to diminish the pain that he had
there. 1t had been thought that he was
paralyzed in the lower limbs, and that he
had disease of the brain, and the disease
| of the brain was construed as being the
cause ofthis paralysis of the lower limbs.
| Fortunately the discovery made of what
we call the vasa-motor nervous system led
me at once to the conclusion that he had
no disease of the brain and had no paral-
ysis. He had only an irritation of those
vasa-motor nerves, resulting from the
upper strain in the spine. That irrita-
tion was the cause of the whole mischief
as regards the function of the brain. The
other sprain caused the pain which gave
the appearance of paralysis. What was
to be done was to apply counter irritants
to those two sprains. That was done.
told him that the best plan of treatment
would consist In the application ofmoxas,
and that they produced the most painful
kind of irritation of the skin that we
knew. had to submit him to the mar
tyrdem of the greatest suffering that can
be afflicted on mortal man. burned
him with the first moxa. l had the hope
that after the first application he would
submit to the use of chlorOfortn; but for
five times after that he was burned in the
same way. and refused to take chloro
form. have never seen patient who
submitted to such treatment in that way
l cannot conceive that it was from mere
heroism that he did it. The real explana
ton was this: Heaps of abuse had been
thrown upon him. He was considered as
amusing himself in Paris; as pretending
to be i'll. In fact, he wanted to get wei
and 60 home as quickly as possible; tO hin
And so he passed through that terrible
suffering-the greatest that have cvel
inflicted upon any being, be it man ol
| o1