Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1896-11-25
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WHERE HAD JOHN BEEN?
A Curious Experiment In Surgery.

described in Harper's Magazine by
Helen H. Gardner. The story is told
in the first person, and has romantic
background of the Civil war.
After the battle of Bull Run, when
the whole country was holding up its
hands in dismay and breathing hard
in the first realization that the war
was not, after all, to be picnic for
the northern troops, I, together with
many other doctors and surgeons,
rushed into Washington from distant
cities. I was taken, one rainy night,
by kind old Negro woman to her
cabin on the edge of the city. She
came to me in tears. "Doctah, l des
wisht yoh come an see my John. He
pears mons'ous curious, an he act des
like he 'stracted."
At her cabin I found her son, tre-
mendous fellow, as black as coal and
evidently an athlete, with no evidence
of wound upon him, but with a
tendency to bear off to one side as he
walked, an apparent inability to talk,
and possessed of persistent effort to
march and keep time to martial music,
which he could not do.
Aunt Martha, as she called herself,
and asked me to call her, told me that
her son had always been strong and
healthy, and that when he left Wash
ington with the army he was perfectly
sound and "des like de res of de
folks; but dey fetch him back to his
poole nanny des like you see him,
doctah, an des skeered plumb outer
my wits, det is" I examined John
carefully, and could find not the least
thing the matter with him, and hall
believed he was shamming.
The room was whitewashed, and
noticed streak entirely around it that
was so evenly drawn that it attracted
my attention; but in the stirring
events of those days I really paid scant
heed to so trifling case as Johns, and
so apparently trivial an indication as
was that level streak on the wall. His
mother was still talking. "De reason
dat all de table an cheers is in de
floor, doctah, is dat John he des runs
inter all of 'em if dey close t. de wall.
Pears like he des' bleeged to skim
along close up as eber he kin. Dat dar
streak is whar his elbow scrapes along
all day an all night, cept' when some
body's sittin' holdin' his ham er feelin'
his pulst, like you is now." Young
and inexperienced as was, even this
did not give me clew, and left Aunt
Martha and John, after giving some
trifing advice and remedy, both OF
which knew to be wholly innocuous.
Ispent several years in Paris and
Germany after the war, and it was not
until 188- that was back in Washing
ton. We had an international conven'
ton there at the time, and were taken
to various public institutions, among
which was little asylum for poor
and insane Negroes.
"In one room, as we were passing
the door, I happened to observe on
the whitewashed wall well-worn
streak drawn so level and circling the
room so perfectly that it called to my
mind vision which I had wholly for.
gotten.
Memory was coming back to me
and slowly taking up the threads oi
the war days, when one of the resi-
dent physicians, who had missed me
and returned, said, as he Joined me
at the grated door:
"Strange case. He has been like
that for years. No one knows why
He is perfectly harmless, perfectly
helpless as to taking care of himself
and he walks and walks, day and
night and always bears to the left. Il
we would let him, he'd bear off to the
left and go in the river or the fire, OF
lose himself in the woods. He never
talks, although we have never found
|anything the matter with him. He
eats and sleeps pretty we'll. Strange
case"
Before noon the next day we had
Johns small room looking like a hos
pital operating-room, and the great
black frame lay OIL the table under the
Influence of ether. Five of us stood
around him, and I told them my the
ories and plans.
My colleagues warmed to the idea
and the work.
1 cut opeu the right side of the
thick skull. and sure enough q splin'
tered piece of bone from an old de-
pressed fracture pressed into the brain
II lifted it, dressed it with aseptics
land replaced skull and scalp and
placed him in his bed. Then we sci
about reviving him. We We're al
Intensely anxious to know what the
result would be-, and five notebooks
were ready in five hands. Presently
John opened his eyes and stared about
him. Then he asked-and it was the
first articulate word he had uttered
for over 20 long years-"Whar did dc
army move to Yesterday ?"
was too excited to reply, and nc
one else appeared to grasp the full
meaning of his question. Presently
said "Toward Richmond, John, bu
YOU were hurt little and had to stay
behind, and we have been doctorins
you. You are all right now. How d.
you feel ?"
"Fus rate, thankee, sir; fus rate
Which side licked yisterday2 Ourn p
"Yes, John. But you must not tall
now. I'll tell you all about it tomor
row."
stayed in Washington a month II
watch his case and ask him some ques
tions, but he never understood one o
them. The battle of Bull Run hat
been yesterday" to him, and if he hat
dreamed, the dreams had taken figh