Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1897-04-06
WANTED.


confidentially; "a very ugly case in.
deedr'
The unconscious patient, borne into
our surgery upon astretcher, was fright
fully injured. That was evident at q
glance
He was passenger by ship just ar-
rived from the Cape, and while prepar-
ing to come ashore heavy box. swung
aloft by the vessels crane, had slipped
and fallen OIL him.
Jim Clifford and We're partners in
an east end practice, close to the docks
His blood soaked clothing bore no
marks which could lead to his identifi-
cation.
No limbs were broken, but the neck
and shoulder were fearfully lacerated.
and one side Of the face was dreadfully
mangled. It was not until late the fol-
lowing evening that he seemed To recov-
or his senses, and then Of course he was
too weak to converse
Jim was strongly in favor of his re-
moval, IN soon as practicable, TO the
nearest hospital The sick man must
have overheard our conversation, for he
signed feebly to my colleague TO stoop
down.
"Not TO the hospital, for heavens
saker' Whispered the poor fellow.
Anywhere but there. Stay hcre-no
friends-sooa be bctter!" he gasped
painfully.
Neither Of Us had the heart to remove
our patient against his will. though his
stay involved one Of us being constantly
in the house and the services Of male
attendant az well.
Days and weeks slipped by. and.
though our patient bovered between life
and death mere than once, he continued
to stay with rs and to engross more or
less Of our attention.
The singular thing was that apparent
ly the patient was without relatives OF
friends in this country-did not know
q soul in London. So he told US, bit by
bit, adding that his name was Octave
Henry, and that he had been in South
Africa for many years. A couple Of rude
sen chests. sent up from the ship, con-
tanned all his belongings.
"I'll tell you what it is said Jim
in his own emphatic way as we sat to-
gether in our snuggery one night. IN
tell you what it is. Fraser. our friend
up stairs will slip through our fingers
after all if we don't look out There's
brain mischief setting in from some
splintered bone, and unless we can do
something 20 remove the brain pressure
well, goodby to his chance Of life!'
Our patient willingly gave his con-
sent to the operation. and the whole af-
fair was arranged and carried out with
in week.
Recovery from the operation Of tre-
panning is always tariy. In the case of
the man Henry, with his already shat
tered physique, it was more than usual
ly protracted.
One morning I remember well. Cliff
ford and ! were by the bedside. The
patient, for the time being, had revived
sufficiently to show himself conscious of
our presence and feebly to sign his
wants.
But there was something about the
appearance Of his eyes that morning
which struck me as being unusual, a
curious, preoccupied look. When jim
and I had left him TO the care Of his at
tendant, remarked upon this symptom.
"You noticed it, them answered
Jim moodily. II thought you would.
All, but that is only one aspect OF the
case, not the most serious either"
Here he broke off abruptly. waited,
without speaking, till he began once
more:
Ibid You ever study the subject Of
sense transference?
Iconfessed that I had not done so to
any great extent.
1T begins to occur to me, continued
Jim, that that is what we have to deal
with in the case-nothing more or less
However it has happened, one thing is
very plain to me-that the sense OF hear
ing in this case is not absolutely destroy
ed, but, as / may put it, diverted into
the optic region-grafted, as it were,
into the sense Of sight.
"But is'such thing possible?" ex-
claimed anxiously.
"Yes. theoretically it is" returned
my partner gravely, "but practically no
example Of it has yet occurred in the
case-that is, of human being. can
only guess that in the present instance
purely accidental causes have led up to
it. But the fact remains that, as have
just said, the man now sees-actually
sees, remember-thatw which, III ordinary
circumstances, he would have heard. :"
My colleagues diagnosis proved to be
true, as we soon found. Little hy little.
a. consciousness returned. it became
painfully evident that the patient'i
senses had become what may call, fu
want Of better word, entangled.
With what startling vividness suct
sensations thus took bodily shape before
him we could only surmise from his ex
cited manner. Sensitive to an extraor.
dinary degree to every breath, every
whisper around him. his staring eyebalk
Il