The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1899-01-05
MAGIC OF RAIN suRGERY.e

81 MAGIC or BRAIN SURGERY.
Isl
In the knife Lies Hope Cor the Mon
I tally Unsound
a Washington dispatch states that
among the recent visitors to that city
y q st. Louis surgeon who has made
9 special study OF brain surgery and is
gathering material for q publication
on that interesting subject, which, al
most more than any other except alb
d DO surgery, shows the progress
OF the past half century or less The
type OF all cases OF pressure from frac-l
tu l OF the SKULL he declared, ais
that OF the man who was kicked by q
morse. AS the animal raised Its leg
the man shouted Whoa, but was
struck on the head by the iron-shod |
moor before he could complete his SEN
tence. He remained unconscious for
three days. When an opening was
made IN the skull, the inner table was
found to be depressed and pressing on
the brain. The instant this was raised,
consciousness returned and he COM
.pleted the cry which he began three
days before Molly!' the animals
name. Where his mind, soul, spirit,
vital spark, or whatever presides over
consciousness was during all that time
Is mystery that stumps the philoso-
pher. It is astonishing that Robert
Louis Stevenson aid other literary men
have been able to describe SO we'll some
forms Of insanity resulting either from
clot effused in the brain or from In
jury to the head In the case Of Mr..
Henry, in the Master of Ballantrae,' he
has given an accurate picture Of the
progressive insanity following an effu-
sion that results from a paroxsym of
anger..A particularly straight minded,
level-headed and considerable man, al
ways temperate and self-contained, is
transformed into an inebriate and re-
pulsive object whose most intimate
friends have to recall with an effort
his earlier qualities in order to tolerate
his presence. Stevenson has been hid
eously true to the record in depicting
this once admirable character; changed
almost to a monster by the smallest
clot of blood escaped from its channel
in the minute vessels of the brain. It
is appalling to think on what slender
thread hangs our sanity, our affability,
and even our affections. OF course,
Shakespeare remains supreme in his
portraiture of one form of insanity. He
was far in advance of the medical
knowledge of his time. No modern
alienist has ever presented Hamlet's
type of mental disorder SO accurately.
So exact and comprehensive is this
product Of the insight of genius that
Maudsley prefers it to any other as the
basis Of study-prefers it to Esquir-
OILS record of actual cases of lunacy in
the Paris hospital for the insane. The
war has brought to the public atten-
ton about all that is to be said of the
safety Of modern surgery-the freedom
from. the formerly fatal sequences of
the knife. Asceptic or antiseptic sur
gerry, the prevention of poisoning by
specific germs, makes it possible to
open the abdominal cavity and the
skull with nothing like the former dan
ger. This danger was never from
the cutting away of the tissues, but
from the shock and the poisoning that
SO often followed the operation It is
now possible to cut away cancerous
part of the stomach to take out sections
of the intestines or tie up any num-
Der of perforations such as gunshot
makes, to remove the spleen and parts
of the kidneys, and to cut out sections
of the brain, with fair chance to re-
covery and the perfect cure of disease.
| There is not unreasonable hope that
surgery may effect the cure of germ
disease for the successful treatment of
! which no toxin has yet been obtained.
A couple of years ago DR.. Marks of
I the St. Louis City hospital made ex-
/ periments that led him to believe
Asiatic cholera can be cured by the
surgeon, even in the stage of collapse.
His idea is to open the abdominal cav
| ity and flood the intestines with an an
/ tisept1c solution capable of destroy
ing the baccilli. without injury to the
patient: The discovery that bacteria
are the cause of many diseases and es-
pecially those that are responsible fo1
the greatest mortality has been of nc
benefit to the physician It has beer
highly valuable to the sanitarian, who
can more easily prevent Infection, but
there is nothing the physician can dc
to check the development and fatal &C
tiyity of germs, except in the case OF
diphtheria. In all others he is forced tc
continue the process of dragging that
was based on another theory of the
etiology of disease.
\ A Beauty of the Arctic.
There is a beautiful bird called the
rosy gull, very few specimens Of which
/ exist in any museum, and whose entire