The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-29

DR.. 6. w. Fl. KEMPER, of Muncie, removed
the breech pin of a shotgun from the brain of
a stout farmer boy, eighteen years. old, living
at Newcomer, Ind. The iron weighed over
one and one half ounces, and was one and one
half inches long. With the iron came also
several pieces of bone and a piece of felt hat,
and other pieces worked out several days after,
under the care of DR.. D. o. Munsey, the fam
lily physician. The boy shot at a squirrel, at
noon, received the injury by the bursting of
his gun, lay insensible for four hours, and
then rose and walked home unaided. Some
blood and a teaspoonful Of exuded brain sub
stance was found on the leaves. The removal
of the iron caused little pain; no opiates or
anesthetics were used. The accident oc-
CURED April 10, 1884, and May 4 the boy was
discharged, having suffered little pain, aud
only slight fever, with delirium, on the fifth
day. The wound is just over the middle Of
the right eye, but the vision of that eye is
perfect and the memory is not affected.
In commenting on the case in the January
number Of the american Journal Of the Med
ical Sciences" DR.. Kemper attributes the ex-
cellent recovery to the free drainage that was
early established. The slight delirium fol-
lowed; pent-up pus disappeared on ~reopening
the wound. In the famous "Harlow-B igelow
tamping iron case," in which a three-foot
tamping iron an inch thick was driven up YER
tically through the brain of the quarryman,
Gage, of Vermont, his surgeons attributed his
recovery to the free drainage above and below.
This case was called by English surgeons the
great american case" and was regarded as a
hoax until verified beyond doubt. The skull
Of Gage is now in the Harvard medical
museum, and it's one-time owner (who died
suspicious natured wanderer) is now con-
signed to fame as having suffered the greatest
brain injury, with recovery, on record. Dogs
have recovered after total removal of the
cerebellum, or little brain, and all the higher
animals survive great injuries and removal of
large portions of the cerebrum, or brain prop
err, without apparent loss of physical or men
tai faculty. The attempts to l~ocalize
the functions Of the brain from the
days of Gall and Spurzheim, the
phrenologists, to the extended and
classical researches Of Terrier, detailed in his
Functions of the Brain" have only estab-
lished the broad fact that the fore brain of
animals is essentially volitional and intellect
ual in function. Terrier described a ~''visual'
an auditory and a '~'tactile" center, the de-
s~truction Of which entailed the. loss of the
corresponding sense on the opposite side. The
stimulation of other areas of the fore brain by
the faradic current produced distinct and
limited movements, each answering to the
spot stimulated as a note to it's key. But it
was found the animals regained their muscu-
lar power after the corresponding volitional
center had been destroyed. Localized dis
eases and accidents, like this of DR.. Kemper's
case, to a portion of the fore brain of man,
have 80 far given better results than physio-
logical experiments on the lower animals.
The power of using words to express ideas
seems intimately connected with a small area
on the fore part Of the left cerebral hemis-
phere, and to be lost when that part is dis
eased, producing the condition known as
aphasia, and this seems to be the most positive
fact regarding the function Of any small part
Of the cerebrum.
THE movement now making to prevail upon
the Legislature to incorporate in the school