Evening star., 1909-01-17
have been fatal in very few hours.
Where the Mind Comes In

Where the Mind Comes In
ON the other hand, find constantly the
~ pelling authority of the mind IN the of certain
individuals of strong will who after receiving what
is properly fatal injury, absolutely refuse let go
their hold on life until the fulment of some definite
object which they have centered all their
determination. Among the mountaineers of Ten
we'll among of the early Western
pioneers and cowboys this tenacity of life often
developed to point where man could be shot
through and through in almost any part of the body
it would SEEM and yet hold his grip upon his life
until he had empted his revolver rifle. There
certain men of desperate character whom
dared attempt to kill because of the firm con-
viction that matter where bullet planted
the man would live long enough to kill his assaant
and this was IN many cases proved to be the fact.
During surgical service in the United States
army IN the Philippines in 1890 and 1900, when
good many OF our men were constantly being
wounded, | was often much impressed by the
tremendous difference in the resistance to death
displayed by different individuals; could this
resistance always be explained by the influence of
grew to believe that sheer vitality an independ-
ent and abstract quality possessed by different
individuals to tremendously ditferer extent, and
not directly dependent on the material influences
belonging to the body or the spiritual influences
belonging to the mind. 1t seemed almost if GER
tain persons had been born into this world with
rich store of vital force which they would always
possess and would enable them to withstand
great deal killing than another person less
generously endowed in this particular quality though
of greater physical and mental force
The words of old hunter whom l once knew
have often recurred to me when marveling at
mans recuperatve power. The old chap had killed
female wildcat after good deal of difficulty, and
as he contemplated the dead animal he said Them
critters is born with awful lot of life into EN-
amt they"
This seems applicable to a great many people:
they are simply born with tremendous amount of
life in them, and nothing is fatal to them unless
accompanied by the absolute destruction of some
part of the machine that is necessary to make it
go but even then some appear able to wabble along
without it.
Didn't Need a Whole Brain
7 ONCE received in my ward on the United States
hospital ship Relief man who had been shot
directly through the brain with good sized bullet
a Remington, l fancy-while pushing his head up out
of a trench in effort to discover the spot from
which the Filipino fire coming. He had
perforating wound of the cerebrum that is to say.
the bullet had entered part of the head at point
about inch above and half inch forward of
the that people commonly call the temple,
and had come out at nearly the spot on the
opposite side of the head. A considerable amount
of his brain tissue had been actually destroyed;
the parietal and frontal bones of the skull
broken in manner that suggested the shell of a
hard boiled egg when raped a table and the
wound filled with pieces of bone and fragments
of his felt campaign hat.
This man was unconscious for about two weeks