Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1907-10-24
Surgery for Lunatics.

al OpeFatlOn was tue suOJecC OF
lecture delivered before the Ineor-
porAted British chronological Society
by DR.. Bernard Hollander, a we'll
known physician for mental diseases,
who early this year caused a sensation
by the publication in the Lancet and
other medical journals of report OF
successful cure of mental derange.
ment by tIspanning.
DR. Hollander created another sem
sation in the course of the lecture by
describing the case Of boy, aged l6,
who was 4 liar and thief, but who,
after the removal of a strip of bone
from his skull, was restored to a ttate
Of perfec, morality.
This boy had to be watched con-
stantly to keep him from destroying
things, from thrsshing his fellow-pu-
pills and throwing stones. He told
falsehoods and had a tendency to
steal; he had no sense of decency and
grew more dangerous the older he got
until mis- deeds brought him before
the police court.
DR.. Hollander proposed the removal
of strip Of bone from the center line
Of the head. This was carried ont.
An incision was made from the top of
the head vertically down to each ear,
when the tissues above the right ear
revealed signs of an old injury. AT
ter several trepannings had been made
the bone was cut away on the right
side, when the membrane of the brain
showed signs of an old hemorrhsge.
After being treated antiseptically the
wound was closed and healed success
fully. The patient got gradually bet.
ter and behaved properly, and not
only did he lose his bad propensities,
but showed high moral feeling.
DR.. Hollander is convinced by this
experience that many sufferers might
be rescued from living tombs to take
their part again in the worlds work
by simple surgical operation.
DR.. Hollander recommends the re-
moval of durable patients from asYlums
to places where they may have an az
sociation of healthy minds. Fifty
years ago, he says, there was doubt
as to the possibility of loCalization,
Lut today it is an accepted doctrine
that there iS plurality of centers in
the brain with definite functions, and
that injury or disease of any circum-
scribed portion of the brain can cause
arrangement of the mental power
which is located there.
There is no possibility Of lOcsliza-
tion of mischief, and it is not fair to
produce such cases in evidence against
chronological doctrine, but that in
sanity may be due to a circumscribed
le,ion on the brain is still receiving
little recognition. although early
phrenologists produced plenty OF evil
dence in its favor and recent obssrva-
tions have confirmed this view.
Careful observation Of all recorded
cases, says DR.. Hollander, "hss shown
me that whenever an injury affects
the same locality the same mental
power suffers, and in this Kramer l
have arrived at the locslization theory.
"There is no case more common
than that of faculty developed IN
consequence of a wound to a degree
never manifested in health. Thus
blows on the temple have caused klep.
tomsnia; blows on the parieticsl emil
nence, melancholy; on the vertex OF
the head, religious insanity, and so on
and if the source Of visitation Is re-
moved the excited faculty is reduced
to it's normal activity.
"There are a great many cases on
record Of blows on the psreitical emil
nencs that have been followed BY such
morbid anxiety that the victim has
committed suicide, when a pOst-mor'
tenn examination has revealed the re-
suits of past Inflammation in the suffrs
marginal and adjacent convulaons.