Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-28
GRAFT TING THE BRAIN.
Possibilities of Transplanting Tissue
From the Skulls of Animals
to Those of Men.
WHAT NOTED SPECIALISTS SAY.
Posthumous Letter of Medical Student
Who Filled Girls Head With the
Brain of Monkey.
WHAT NOTED SPECIALISTS SAY.
TIE RESULT DROVE HIM TO SUICIDE.
After Recovery the Victim Initiated the Daring
operstor's Every Motion.
rcoRREspoxpENcE OF THE prsrArcB.,


leg of a female dog was actually grated by
an aluminium peg, sutures of silver, fine
rods of iron and plaster of paris cast to the
bones of the ankle of little Johnny Gethins,
in which there was hiatus caused by con-
genital maliormation, there can now be no
doubt
DR.. Phelps is professor of orthopedic
surgery in the Medical College of the Uni
versity of New York, and the result of his
novel and intensely interesting experiment
has been eagerly watched by the world of
science as well as the general reading pub
lie. The question of how Tar, If at all,
brain-grafting is possible, and whether
wounds OF the brain may be repaired and
diseases of the brain cured by the intro
duction into the skull of the human animal
OF portions of the living brain tissue of
physically perfect brutes or of other healthy
human animals, has at once grown into an
importance which might until recently have
been deemed impossible.
NOT SUCH AwoNDER AFTER ALL.
The discovery of a lymph which can
check, if not cure, tuberculosis would have
been considered before DR.. Koch's an
uOuuCSWCul GNCu 1OIS pOSelbAC bhdA bulc
still hypothetical method of grating health
and perfection on the human brain. But
is it Hypothetical purely?
There are well authenticated cases of eye
grating, the eve of rabbit having been
transplanted alive and induced to take hold
ofthe human orbit. Those portions or areas
Of the brain which have to do with eyesight
and speech and the motion of the extremities
he nv the curUeon'S knife
and very conside 'Able portions have been
carried away by accidental injuries, accord
ing to DR.. William Tillinghast Bull, the
American surgeon, singled out for special
mention at the international Congress in
Berlin last summer, without interfering,
apparently, with the subsequent rest ration
of the victim to health and the full enjoy
ment of all The human faculties before
possessed.
HAS brain grating been successfully
performed" ?" 1 asked DR.. Bull.
The father OF American laparotomy shook
his head. mot shat l know OF, said he;
''but DR.. W. G. Thompson knows about
that; it has been said that he succeeded in
grating brain matter"
WITH FOREIGN SUBSTANCES
"Has any foreign substance, doctor, ever
been introduced into the human skull and
left there, with favorable results %
Never, l believe; the silver plate used
to cover a fracture OF the skull rests on and
not within the latter. As to what portions
or convoiutions OF the brain substance would
have 10 be operated on, removed or ADDED
70, TO effect any given result, say, in the
nerve OF motion, you would better ask DR..
Allan McLane Hamilton" and DR.. Bull,
who is one ofthe busiest as we'll as one of
the handsomest surgeons in the world,
climbed into a coupe and was driven to the
Grand Central station to operate in life
and death case at Albany.
DR.. Hamilton, who was Government ex-
pert in the Guiteau case, and who since the
precedent then established, is now often
called in this city, not as an expert witness,
but as medical COUNSEL for the State in
criminal cases where insanity is the de-
fense, declined to speak of cases in his own
practice.
WHAT MIGHT BE ACCOMPLISHED.
"But," said he, "brain grating may be
G discovery of the not distant future, if it
has not already been done, and the atten-
tion directed to it now, when medical
progress seems specially wonderful, NAV but
foreshadow the accomplished TACT. Would
the subject of such an operation, were the
operation successful, develop mental traits
and tendencies oharacterizing the person
from whose brain the graft had been re-
moved? Quite possibly.
81 understand DIR. Thompson has been sue
eessful in certain experiments in grating
portions of the brains of dogs on cats, and
vice versa. You mad best see him. AS
reply TO your question whether the couvolu-
tions of the human brain are the same in
different individuals, you may satisfy your
self that they are by examining these models
in plaster OF paris. The general lines and
folds are the same, the more minute con-
formations differing, of course, with each in
dlvlduaL No matter how perfectly any two
twins, for example, may resemble each other,
as to the eve, and in their apparent tastes,
studies and general environment, the con-
volutions of their brains would never be e1-
sctly similar, and their thoughts and de-
aires would really differ TO that degree.
DRoMIos IN MIND.
"It seems impossible to imagine any two
people with brains the exact fac-similes one
Of the other. Two such people, however,
did they exist, and had their whole environ
ment, education and breeding been the
same, would no doubt think the same
thought and in short be mental dromios
The brain of the chimpanzee and orang-
outang are, as you see by the casts here, not
so dissimilar il general shape and convolu-
tion to that of man. Indeed, it is not easy
TO distinguish the brain of a chimpanzee
from that OF a youth"
DR.. W. G. Thompson is Professor of
Physiology in the medical college of the
University OF the City of New York. The
laboratory in which be punches and pounds
away at his queer looking plaster casts, is q
block below the famous Carnegie labora-
tory.
THE grating of portion Of the brain OF
one human being onto the brain of another
has never been done, and believe never
will be done, said this brown-eyed and al
most boyish looking young man, whose sud-
den notorIety through sorle experiments in
animal brain grating conducted by him
some time since has not failed to leave him
slightly elated.
MYSTERY OF SUICIDE.
In the light of the foregoing the reader
must draw his own conclusions from the fol-
lowing paper, now in the possession OF a
famous specialist of this city, and which
was mailed to him the night before bril-
liant young medical student was found dead
in his apartments last summer. There was
an inquest at the time, but this paper, which
might have thrown light on the tragedy
which the Coroner's jury found to be "sc-
cidental death," was not discovered then,
and indeed has lain In Its envelope until |
within . few weeks unopened in the mail |
box Of the medical man referred 10, who was
away In attendance on the International |
Oongress In Berlin, and who afterward ex-
tended his travels till he is now barely at |
home once more in his Office:
Ny DEAR FRrETp-The horror and remorse |
which oyercame me this afternoon when I |
again saw the poor match girl, Mary Lindsay, |
N the ftreet car, seem to weigh upon me |