The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1890-10-09
Alive in Death,

alive III UeaJn,
Quite q good deal Of interest and
curiosity has been awakened by the
Statements Of persons who have lost
a leg or an arm by amputation. Such
persons often claim weeks after the
I limb has been separated from the
body that it panied them, that it did
not lie easy in it's resting place; that
they experienced feeling as if the toes
or fingers were cramped, or as if
some heavy weight was resting on
them. This imagination having such
hold on them, they could not rest
until the dismembered parts were ex-
humed, Strengthened out and buried
over again. One such case came up
in Toledo, a year or SO ago, where a
railroad man who had lost an arm
complained Of a heavy weight press
ing on his fingers, and on the box be-
ing opened in which the arm had been
buried, small stone or piece of soil
was found on the hand, and upon it's
removal the man said hefelt no more
pain.
4 Journalite meeting a friend of
his the other day, who has lost both
an arm and leg some eight or ten
Years ago (Wm. H. Roberts, Of the
Nickel Plate, Argos, Ind, and think
ing him a, good person to interview
on this subject, proceeded as follows:
| What sensation did you experience
| when you lost your limbs, Mr.. Rob.
erts?
/ Hardly any, the nerves were numb
! at first and the pain came on gradu-
i ally until chloroform was TAKEN
! Does your hand Or leg ever trouble
you now, or have they ever troubled
you since amputation?
! ooh, yes, [ can feel them all the
time, in fact at the time OF amputa-
ton and ever since, the, pain expert
enced seemed to be located in the
dlsmembered part and not on the
body where the amputation took
! place. At the present time I have a
singing sensation On my ankle as of
a bite OF an insect, while my hand
! feels as if circulation had been sus-
pended in it. |, apparently, can open
and close my hand and move nv
/ toes" e
/ But did you at any time have any
/ trouble, or pain, arising directly from
treatment of the hand or foot after
amputation?
'No, and nobody ever did; that is
purely Imagination, arising from the
same feeling that / experience now.
| For instance, if strike my leg thus,
/ gently striking the stump of mis- leg)
feel a tingling sensation in my foot,
and do not feel anything here where
| strike it. Again my big toe will
I. itch just as it did in life, then [ will
gently stroke the nerve that leads to
g that toe and it will have precisely
the same effect as if my leg had not
4 been amputated.''
4 How do you account for this?
4 swell | have not studied the mat
ter only through experience, and as
it effected me, and [ account for it
through the nervous system. The
nerves that permeated my hand and
arm are still active and working in
the stump, here my arm is cut off
close to the shoulder, how at the
present time my elbow is itching,
my shirt here is gently rubbing
i against the nerve that led originallyto
! the elbow, [ move the shirt, rub it
gently and the itching sensation
leaves it. Now this is not magma
ton, this is real, caused by the mus
Giles and the nerves working jointly,
/ | work the muscle in my leg that
would move my big toe, that muscle
acts on the nerve and [ feel the toe
move"
/. How about these people who claim
that they feel something bothering
the limb after it has been inferred?
| "Now that is imagination, caused
as | have said, by the nerves, and the
trouble is at that part of the body
where. .amputation took place, and
not in the part that is buried, al
though it is very deceiving, and often
leads people to think otherwise.
When my arm and leg were cut off
/ they laid them on ice for nine days,
and if there had been any sympa-
1 thetic feeling between the dismem-
/ bered parts and myself think [ GER
tainly ought to have felt chilly, but
/ did not. There, my little toe has
gone to sleep now, [ will have to
wake him up. .
An thereupon he took off his arti-
fetal leg and rubbed his leg and
rubbed his little toe.-Toledo Jour.
nal.