The morning news., 1894-02-03
STORY OF A NEWSPAPER YARN.
Il Deceived Medical Authorities All
over the World.
From the New York Mail a nd Express.


to make calculations as to the percentage
of acceptances thereof by people of every
day common sense. II is as astonishing
as it is interesting when you come to
| figure it out, how statement, plausibly
put and leavened with just enough fact to
| give 1t life, will be swallowed without
| question by men who should refuse to ac-
cept bald assertions as fact by the very
logic of their positions. | mean by this
that bit of ingenious sophistry should
not convince logician; a problem false
In its proposition should not confuse a
mathematician; and, to come to the con-
crete and more practical, the description
OF surgical operation thatnev did, and
never could take place, ought not TO de-
ceive an anatomist and surgeon. Let me
illustrate this point first.
MENTAL HOMICIDE.
I cannot recall the precise date, but it
was in the latter part of 1881 or early in
1852 that New York newspaper con-
tanned an article describing a most re-
markable operation in cranial surgery,
which, it was alleged. had been per-
formed by Philadelphia physician upon
his man servant. The operation was not
one of necessity nor of experience; it was
ocular demonstration that the functions
of the motor and sensory centers were in
! dependent, or, more specifically speaking,
that the motor could exist and act with
out the presence of the entire sensory sys-
TEN. To demonstrate this, our expert
mental friend induced his faithful servi-
tor to surrender few ounces
OF his brains. He was placed
under ether, and after a flap of
scalp had been thrown back q circular
incision was made in the right
and left parietal region of the skull. The
pieces of bone cut out by the trephine
were placed in an antiseptic liquor, a sur
gical spoon was introduced, first into one
cavity and then into the other, and the
operator removed from each side about
an ounce of brain from the convolutions
which his researches led him to believe
governed the seat of cerebral activity.
| The bony lids were replaced over each
| circular opening, the scalp flaps put back,
and the patient was ready for bed, where
he remained several days apparently OBJ
liyious TO his surroundings. All the in
voluntary functions of the body proceeded
as before, and when the man had sutfi-
clently recovered from the physical shock
he was put on his feet.
He conld not maintain his equilibrium
in stationary posture, but when started
walking would continue the motion oflegs
and feet until he brought up against an
obstruction that hindered further pro-
gress. The physician congratulated him
self on the nicety of his measurements
and calculations, but as time went on he
realized that while he had committed no
crime for which the statute books pro
vided a penalty he was nevertheless, to
all intents and purposes, murderer. He
had not extinguished the spark we call
life, but he had destroyed the ego, or, If
the term might be employed, he had COM
mitted mental homicide. The story went
on to tell how the victim was eventually
placed in an asylum for the insane, where
he was regarded as congenital idiot, and
so entered on the books of the institution.
His master, it was said, brooded to such
an extent that he eventually died of re-
morse, leaving behind him history Of
the operation and its me ancholy result,
and from this posthumous paper the
story was written.
FOOLED THE DOCTORS.
1t so happened that l was an intimate
friend of the author of the queer yarn,
and he was anxious to learn whether the
scientific world would give even a con-
temptuous denunciation to it. With that
purpose in view he marked the article in
fifteen or twenty papers. These he
mailed to various medical journals and
scientific societies throughout Europe and
America III confess surprise when. some
three weeks later, | saw an Edinburgh
periodical take up the subject, accept it
as fact and criticise the physician in the
severest terms for having dared TO tritie
with the human brain when there was no
necessity and where there could be but
one result.
The gravest apprehension was enter
tanned for any medical society that would
- III . AZ
with the name of any practitioner who,
in a mistaken devotion to science, could
forget that he was man and the member
of profession whose mission was not to
destroy, but to build up; not to aid to the
weight of human woe, but to take from
it, To clinch the argument it was shown
| that an operation on one of the lower ami
mails would have been of equal value to
determine the exact seat Of certain cere-
bral functions, as though made on hui
man being.
| One or two western newspapers repro
| duced the article without comment, and a
Melbourne weekly, copying from one of
these, said in footnote that it was IAN
! audacious act that none but a Yankee
surgeon, regardless Of criticism or results,
would undertake" In none of these pub
| locations was there any challenge OF the
| Veracity of the statement per Sc. AS a
|
the publication was the fact that a medi-
| cal student, who had strong predilec-
tion for the study of nervous diseases,
had evolved a theory that condition like
| that described might be produced by such
an operation. He did not place his
thoughts in the assumptive future, but in
the assumptive past, and his written
record made it appear that surgeon had
actually found a man fool enough to per-
nit himself to be deprived of his senses
completely without reward and without
| hope of recovery.
From this the story was woven, with
such ingenuity as TO completely cloak the
| vital point, viz, that in 10000 men it
would be impossible to find one, even if
weary of life, who would be willing to
undergo such transition ever for a pre-
vious reward of temporal comforts. This
| particular fallacy is one that would pos
| sibly be maintained by the thoughtful