Morning journal and courier., 1886-09-09
EPILEPSY.
A New Era in Surgery Promises to Hid the Human Race of One of Its Great eaf CnrseE


 est Curses.
 From the London Times1
 At the meeting on Aug. 14 of the Brit ish Medical Association at Brighton. MT. Victor Horsley F. R. s. Surgeon to the National Hospital for the paralyzed and Epileptic, exhibited three patients treated in that hospital, whose recovery may be said to mark the commencement of 8 now era in surgery. They are men who have been suffering from severe epileptic fits, and in whom Mr. Horsly has opened the skull and has removed diseased structure new growth from the brain itself.
 In the most recent of these three the operation was performed on the 18th of July, so that complete month has since elapsed; and the patient was sufficiently well to take the journey to Brighton. The other two cases were operated upon, one week or two and the other several weeks earlier; and in none of the three has there been any symptoms to interfere with the prompt and complete recovery. So far, also, the men are cured of their epilepsy; but con- siderable time must be permitted to elapse before any claim for permanence of result can be established. What is actually proved at present is, that it has become possible, by the observation of symptoms, not only to determine the fact of the existence of some morbid growth within the skull, but also to determine it's precise position with such ac curacy that it can be cut down upon and removed without injury, the functions to these portions are subservient being perform ed after while very possibly by cores bonding parts of the opposite hemis- pheIe.
 In two of MT. Horsley's patients there had been injuries, and one of them had been previously trephined for the purpose of ele- vating portions of bone which were depressed by fracture of his skull; so that in both of these localiZation was assisted by manifest
 1,,,E, l, nothing of this kind ,and thepoint at which the skull should be opened was determined solely by the fact that the fits commenced in a particular group of muscl9s-those. namely, which act upon the left thumb. The physi- elan in charge of the case wa7 able to say that this manner of commencement pointed certainly to the presence of a continuing source of irritation near the surface of the brain at definite spot; and, the surgeon having opened the skull at the point indica- ted, a tumor was found imbedded in the brain substance, and together with portion of brain surrounding it, was removed, so far with absolute cessation of the fits, which were previously not only very frequent, but, as might have been expected, were also in creasing alike in frequency and in severity, and were such as to disable the patient from following any occupation, not to say that they placed his life in constant jeopardy from accident. There are two contingencies in relation to the cases which render it i'm possible to predict with certainty the perma- nence of the results obtained, and these are, first, that the scar which must form in or upon the brain tissue may possibly itself be- come source of irritation in time; and, sec- ondly, that second proportion of brain tu- mors, as of tumors in other parts of the body are of a nature to render recurrence possible or probable.
 We have here then, as ''F. R. S." pointed out in relation to the former case, an illus tration of the value and usefulness of ex- perimentation on living animals. Dr. Hit zig and Dr. Terrier commenced to experi- ment upon living animals by applying the stimulation of weak galyanic currents to diff ferent portions of the brain, that the offices of these portions became known, and then it was found that the brain surface is largely made up of what are technically called mo- tor areas-that is to say of regions which ex- cite movements, each in it's especial part of the body. Localization is as y6~]only in it's infancy, but even now skillful experiment. er by stimulating in succession different parts of the brain, can cause a narcotized and therefore unconscious animal to perform considerable variety of actions with per feet precision; and it has been found, for ex- ample, that portion of the brain surface which the phrenologist asserted to be the seat of ideality, or acquisitiveness, or some such rubbish, is in reality the exciting cen ter of the movements of the left thumb. It l was the application of this particular piece of knowledge which enabled the medical staff of the National hospital to point out the seat of the disease in MT. Horsley's third pstient