Waterbury Democrat., 1902-07-23
i aGrieyc, BiSSct x Holland
INJURIES TO THE BRAIN.
Remarkable Cases in Which Little

Remarka Dle cases III WHICH AhlIiS
 Trouble Was Given.
 The idea that the human brain is an organ so extremely delicate in its struc- ture that it cannot bear the slightest physical hurt, says Tit-Bits, sometimes appears to receive a contradiction in the experience of people who have met with peculiar injuries to the head. The history of brain surgery presents some remarkable facts in regard to the ex- tent to which the thinking organ will sometimes resist the effects of external injury. It has been shown that in some cases quantities of it's substance may be removed without appreciab1e diminishing the normal intelligence of the patient; while some have been known to carry the most extraordinary foreign substances embedded in their skulls for years.
 Finds of the most singular kind have been made in the interior substance of A the living human brain. The strangest yS things have been known to find entry E. there through accident or design. In \ one case it was the blade of pen knife that was carried about in the ibrain for half q lifetime without the spatient being in the last aware of it; idn another it was penholder that had somehow found it's way there and re- mained in it's living hiding place with out apparently interfering with the sfhinking power of the organ; while re- gently a piece of slate pencil was recoy- cred from a boys brain after it had been hidden there for several years. It is, therefore, perhaps none the more surprising that many a bullet which has found its billet in a human brain has proved no more than a tenn porary inconvenience.
 A French soldier who received a bull aet in his head during the Franco Ger man war of 1870 carried 1t there for twenty seven years, and was said to have felt no i'll effects till 1897, when it one day worked it's way downward into the mouth and so rid him of its presence. sEFftFFSS@S RM ts In the case of German soldier who was shot in the head during the "Son- derbund1 war, he lived to carry the 1eaden souvenir in his brain for forty three years, and 1t was not extracted till after his death.
 These two remarkable cases, how ever, seem to be beaten by another that has recently been brought to light, the case being that of an old soldier still living who for over half q cen tury carried in his head the bullet re- (C4fCo dQ11uS LuG AuSlI1du GcOS1ilOa Of 1S4S.
 Would-be suicides have occasionally put bullets into their brain to no pur- pose and perhaps one of the most as- tonfshing cases of recent years was that dealt with at the Richmond hos pital only a year or so ago. The pa- tient had in vain tried to take his life by shooting himself in the head, and after thus placing two bullets in his brain he was immediately conveyed in a cab to the hospital. But he was so little affected at the time by the pres ence of the bullets in his head that he actually alighted from the vehicle. walked along the garden path and up the steps of the hospital, and was then able to give an intelligent account of what had taken place.
 In a similar case of se1f-inficted in jury that came before the doctors at Guys hospital n few months later the Would-he suicide. after firing a reyol yer bullet into his head. was discovered smoking his pipe as if nothing very se rious had happened, and though the bullet had penetrated the skull to q depth of three and a half inches he was able to walk part of the way to the hospital and there undress himself without assistance previous to under going examination
 The effects of removing bullets from the brain are sometimes as remarkable as any of the foregoing, and perhaps in this connection mention may be made Of the ease of a military cadet operated on by doctor of Vienna just recently On removing the bullet small auanti- fy of brain had also to be taken away. the peculiar result being that though unaltered in any other respect. the pa. fient irretrievably lost all of his good manners, for which he was noted The eminent surgeon. therefore, suggests that the portion of brain removed with the bullet corresponds to what he de- scribes as the "bump of good man. ners"