Evening star., 1937-06-11
BRAIN Ill MAKES
VICTIM HALF MAN
Otherwise Normal, Afflicted
Person Suddenly Becomes
One-Sided,
BY THOMAS II. HENRY,
Etar Correspondent OF The Star.


leaves the left side wet
He can't get undressed to go to
bed, for he is completely oblivious
Of the fact that he wears left sus-
pender and a left sock.
He has become a right half OF
man who dosen't know that he has
a left half and can't be persuaded
OF the fact. He can see the left half,
and may be intellectually argued into
admission that it is part of him. But
1t seems like another man whom he
doesn't know and doesn't want to
. know.
Otherwise he may be altogether
normal.
Such is the weird psychatric syn
drome which results from certain
LESSONS, usually the result of brain
tumors, on the right side of the
parletal lobe of the brain 1t was
described to the nervous and men,
tai disease section of the American
Medical Association here today by
DR., J. M. Nelson of Los Angeles.
The parietal lobe is that part of the
top of the brain which covers the top
of the head from approximately
alne extending between the backs of
the ears to the rearward downward
stope of the skull 1t seems to be the
great association field of the cerebral
CorteX where sensations of sight,
kound and touch are co-ordnated to
make up the pattern of the outside
world in which a person exists.
Lesion in Left Parietal Lobe.
A very different situation arises if
the lesion is in the left paretal lobe.
DR., Nelson reported on the basis of
ease histories Of some of his own
patients. In that case the strange
smnesia affects both sides of the body
The victim remains tWo-sided, but he
IS unable to tell left from right, can't
recognize his own fingers, and becomes
nisoriented in space.
Either condition may come about
nr at least first be reCognized-Quite
suddenly. He told of Los Angeles
doctor who received call to visit
patient one evening. The nurse in
his office looked up the address. The
street was unknown to him and he
asked her to look it up on map Of
the city She did so and started to
direct hin1-so many blocks straight
ahead, so many to the right, then so
many to the left.
Suddenly the doctor realized that
what she was saying was without any
meaning to him. He had lost all
power Of recognizing left and right.
He finally found the house only by
stopping his car at every street cor
ner and making observations of IA
Irliliar landmarks The condition
might go on indefinitely without the
patient recognizing it, DR.. Nelson
said. until some emergency arises
which brings it to his attention.
Location of Lessons.
The LESSONS of the brain which
cause this condition appear to be
rose to the border which separates
the parietal lobe from the occipital
lobe, or back part of the brain, where
the center of vision is located, or are
neeply buried near the thalamus,
The left parietal lobe seems, he said,
to have the function of keeping in
consciousness the Wilderness of the
body, while the right lobe deals chief
ly with impressions on the left side
The parietal area as a whole is ex-
tremely obscure, seeming to have few
very specific functions. Dr. Theodore
G, Ruch of Yale University told of
experiments with monkeys and Chin
panzeeS in an effort to determine the
location of some of these-the ability
20 discriminate weights, to judge de-
Erees OF roughneSs and to recognize
the shapes of things.
Working with the conditioned re-
sponse technique-in which animals
are rewarded with food, making cor
rect judgments of weight, roughness
Of shape-he found that monkeys soon
reacquied all their former ability
when the paretal lobes were extir-
pated, that chimpanzees never quite
got 1t back again, and that men op-
Grated on because of brain tumors
were somewhat worse off than the big
apes. Thus, he determined, the parie-
tai lobe and its specific fuictions fit
into the general pattern of evolution
Study of Frontal Lobe.
Then the neurologists turned to the
frontal lobe-the most exclusively hu-
man part Of the whole body. 1t once
was considered the seat of the soul,
and later of intelligence. 1t has been
one of the chief objects of interest
to physicians who attended the Ameri-
can Medical Association meetings here
this week because of the striking ex-
llibit of frontal lobe operations by
Drs. Walter Freeman and James A.
Watts of Washington.
DR.. Ward c. Halstead of Chicago
told Of former stock broker of that
city, a large portion of whose left
frontal bone was removed because Of
q tumor. Before the operation the
man had been deterorating rapidly
and had failed in business. After the
removal he seemed to go through a
period Of definite insanity, from which
he soon recovered sufficiently to be let
out of the hospital.
The next heard of him he was man.
aging a gold mine. This failed through
no fault of his. and he talked himself
into job as a salesman for a line of
goods of which he knew nothing. In
the first week his sales amounted to
quarter of a million dollars, the big
gest business ever obtained in a week
by that particular company He has
been keeping up his record work ever
since.
But DR.. Halstead has been making
periodic examinations of this man and
finds that he actually is not so intelli-
gent, although far more successful,
than before the operation.
His wife says that the only difference
Is that he doesn't find fault about little
details so much, has stopped worrying
about the house and can't drink as
much As he used to without going hay
r-,ya