The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-01-22

A 12 wear old boy hopped on his bicycle and followed the fire engine up the street. The fire chiefs car came along after the engine and in | attempting to dodge the boy on the bike knocked him off the wheel The boys head struck the cap was split off completely. We hurried him to the hospital and replaced portions of the cere- brum and stitched up the meningeal membrane nI ard covered the brain with the skull cap; The boy talked with us quite rationally while we were at work. He felt pain from the stitch ing and necessary manipulation of the damaged brain tissues and skull. The brain itself has no sensation to pain. Neither has any other internal organ. The pain of appendicitis, for instance IS not in the appendix at all. It is in the branches of spinal nerves in the belly, the abdominal wall. once through the skin and body wall, you can provided you avoid rough handling tension or stretching of the tissues or bruising or injury. These latter stimuli cause no pain, but they are likely to produce serous shock. The absence of pain sense in internal organs explains how sur geons can accomplish much under local an- esthesia-they have only to benumb the sensi- tive of skin and body wall, and to use all internal structures on which they working. Aside from the fact that the boy felt no pain from the surgical treatment (and had anesthetic) it was remarkable that he retained 1uli conscl- ousness and unimpaired mental function, al- though considerable part of the cerebrum was destroyed
 Recent surgical observation has proved that the whole of the right cerebral hemisphere may be removed without disturbance of mentality; this has been done repeatedly for the removal of large brain tumor.
 Both right and left frontal lobes of the brain may be removed without disturbing the patients mentality. The patient remains perfected orient ed as to time. place and person; the memory is unimpared: reading, writing and mathematical calculation are still done accurately; conVersa- tion- is normal.
 In other cases the left occipital lobe and the lower third of the left temporal lobe have been removed without apparent effect on mentality.
 The intellect. 'therefore, is seated somewhere in the remaining portion of the left cerebral hemisphere and is probably closely associated with the speech mechanism center. Lgaton Cying off) the anterior cerebral ar destroys tion of the same artery on the right side has no such effect.
 The impunity with which large portions of the cerebrum may be destroyed or removed will sug- gest different ideas to different people. To my mind it suggests the physiological truth l have often tried to tell here, namely that there is no' such thing as nerve energy, brain power or exhaustion" of either
 The functioning of brain nerves involves
 more expenditure of energy indeed rather less less does the functionins of the skin or the stomach QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Calcium Sulphidc Would 1t be advisable to give my little boy. od calcium s%pSc ns you suggest preventive? (Mrs P. HJ Answer-The calcium sulphide is harmless enough, but I doubt that it prevents any nfec- tion. The only precaution I can suggest is to keep the child from personal contact with other children, or with adults, who have anything that resembles alleged "cold" throat In the ma jority of cases of acute poliomyelitis the illness or indisposition at first purports to be a "cold.' To the best of our knowledge the virus of infantile paralysis is spread in the same way as is diphtheria scarlet fever measles ton silitis or simple cOryZa, in the mouth spray given off when the individual coughs, sneezes laughs talks. The only difference between the spray from an uncovered cough or sneeZe and that from uncovered talking shouting is that the cough spray has a greater range-1O to 12 feet as compared with the 3 or foot range of ordin- ary polite conversational spray. The clinical evil dence seems to shows that infantile paralysis is communicable in the early stage when the Vic- tim first feels shows slight symptoms of indis- position, and continues to be communicable for not nger than 10 days or two weeks. It is no longer communicable after the paralysis devel- ops. Practically the disease is spread only during the time the weakness or fabbiness in the af- fected muscles becomes evident.
 Girl Needs Manicure
 What can do to help a girl of ii to stop bit- ing her nails? She is active, healthy child but bites her nails continually. II have pleaded bribcd and punished without effect. (Mrs K. E.)
 Answer-If she is your daughter, Madam, you take wrong attitude. That is evident in your description of the child as "a girl" If you took "ny daughter" Perhaps the best psychology for the child would be series of visits to good manicure, say week for half dozen weeks This will get her interested in the care of her nails.
 Copper Not Poisonous
 I read with interest your articles on lead pOis- OniDg. Would 1t be possible for the copper in as lead does? (Mrs J. McG.)
 Answer-No. copper is not poisonous. Indeed> we believe the blood must have a certain amount of copper normally.