The morning call., 1891-11-20
WIND-SWEPT HEADS,
A Doctors Scheme for Detecting
Insanity.

DIR. Peter McCahey Of PHILADELPHIA has
found that by placing a stethoscope to
persons head he can distinctly hear the
sound of an air current within, and by the
character of the sound can tell whether a
person is sane or insane; and he positively
AYERS that in the Uranium of big-headcd
idiot this wind current can be distinctly
heard loudly whstling
The doctor Is convinced that the brain
breathes as well as the lungs. For mauv
years lie has been investigating air as n
mechanical agent in the human body,
and, about year ago, conceived the
novel idea OF n rubber tip to the ord nary
stethoscope, whereby the instrument can
be fitted so exactly to the subjects
head That the sound of this brain respiration
cannot escape. but may be undeniabIy
heard. That 1t differs in sane and insane
persons the doctor is convinced, and by
means of the stethOscope he feels sure he
can distinguish, as a rule, between healthy
Drained people and those who are insane or
idiots.
The little rubber tip, which is DR.. Nc
Cahey's discovery. is a novelty, and its
story was unfoded by Dr. McCahev him
self last evening.
My general theory" declared Dr.. Nc
Cahey, rs that the great me chanicdl agent
employed by all the animate world, animal
or vegetable, to permit of growth against
the continual resistance of the atmosphere
is heated air. Within the interstices of tho
tissue OF the body is air, and this air. be-
coming heated by the processe, of life. exer-
clses a greater expansive force than the
outer atmosphere, and thereby enables the
animal TO grow against il. You can squeeze
TINS air cut or tomato and pepper under
water and see 1t come up in large bubbles.
In the tissue and hollow organs Of men this
air is used as the direct mechanical func-
| ton. The expusive force in splitting, cough
! ing and sieezlng We know to be air
"a free supply OF air to the brain is lust
as necessary as a Tree supply to the lungs,
and any interference with this brain res
| piratlOn viii cause serious disturbance of
the cerebral functions, even ms nifty. In
! sanity may be caused by a tunor or by n
| congestive blow. bat pGst-m0rtems almost
| invariably disclose no resident cause Of in
| sanity. Tina: people become insane and are
permanently restored and that there is
recurrent insanity points to functional de-
| rangement.
This disturbed function claim to be the
! cranlal respiration. Air taken into the
| lungs passes to and from the brain through
minute pores Mt the base of the skull. The
| normal circulation of blood through the
| brain depends upon this normal air current
| II from any cause these tiny pores become
| closed or stopped to an abnormal degree, the
current Is impeded or destroyed. The air
that Is smut IN becomes overheated and con-
| gests the brain"
BY means OF the doctors rubber tipped
stethoscope wonderful things come to light.
In the head of healty person two distinct
sounds can be heard. coincident with the in
halation and exhalaton of air by the lungs
| These sounds are practically of the same
| tone in all healthy heads, but are altered OF
| absent in all classes of insane or idiots
! The sounds OF the heart ana voice in these
mentally weak and deranged unfortunateS
are also different from those in sane
| persons. As there are grades of insanity SO
| there are degrees of sound. As a rule the
noise Of the wind current of an i sane or
idiotic brain is more markedly preceptible
| than that Of sane organ, and in big headed
| Idiots it whistles loudly. The major portion
of insanity is caused by arrangement of the
| cranial wind apparatus. Where it is not
| due to tumor, blow or some kindred d.
rect injury to the brain or its covering, In
sanity is traceable to this I'll wind" aud
the rubber-tipped steth0scOpe may yet be-
come the champion insane expert OF the
wOrld.-Newark Journal.