Gilpin observer., 1899-01-05
MAGIC OF BRAIN SURGERY.
In the Knife Lies Hope for the Mon.
tally Unsound.

In the Knife Lies Hope for the Men.
tally Unsound.
A Washington dispatch states that
among the recent visitors to that city
is st. Louis surgeon who has made
special study of brain surgery and is
gathering material for a publication
on that interesting subject, which, al
most more than any other except abb
doMinal surgery, shows the progress
of the past half century or less. "The
type of all cases of pressure from frac-
ture of the skull" he declared, sis
that of the man who was kicked by
horse. AS the animal raised its leg
the man shouted Whoa, but was
struck on the head by the iron-shod
hoof before he could complete his SEN
tence. He remained unconscious for
three days. When an opening was
made in the skull, the niger 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. 1t is astonishing that Robert
Louis Stevenson and other literary men
have been able to describe so well 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. particularly straight-minded,
level-headed and considerate 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 monster by the smallest
clot of blood escaped from it's channel
in the minute vessels of the brain. 1t
is appalling to think on what a 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
nf tl, -trrI,f 80
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-
tion 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. 1t is
now possible to cut away a cancerouS
part of the stomach to take out sections
of the intestines or tie up any num-
ber of perforations such as a gunshot
makes, to remove the spleen and parts
of the kidneys, and to cut out sections
of the brain, with a 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
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
tiseptic 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 for
the greatest mortality has been of no
benefit to the physician. 1t has been
highly valuable to the sanitarian, who
can more easily prevent infection, but
there is nothing the physician can do
to check the development and fatal ac-
tivity of germs, except in the case of
diphtheria in all others he is forced to
continue the process of drugging that
was based on another theory of the
etiology of disease.