Evening star., 1940-03-09
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

III s1SiOs AOOVJ0tOiy
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.
A self-hred bullet through WASH
ington woman's brain which cured"
without killing the victim has furnished
a case which may become classic In
medical records.
1t has just been reported to neurolo-
gists of the Medical Society of the Dis
trict of Columbia by Dr. Zigmund Leben-
sohn, formerly of the medical staff of
st. Elizabeth's Hospital, and is the first
known instance Of such an injury to an
insane person.
The 52-year-old woman, long a victim
Of acute alcoholism, had gone into a
profound depression. She had made
several unsuccessful attempts to kill her
self. About a year ago, after a quarrel
with her husband on f1imsy pretext,
she pressed a .25-caliber revolver against
her right temple and fred. The bullet
went completely through the brain, pre-
sumably was DETECTED by the wall Of
the skull on the left side, turned around
and went third of the way back again.
1t is still in the brain just back of the
left eye, from which position it would be
very difficult to remove It,
One effect described by DR.. Lebensohn
is that the woman occasionally hears a
watch ticking" inside her skull. When
she first told her husband about this he
became alarmed that she was hearing
things"-a bad sign in mental disorder
but when he placed his ear against her
forehead he also heard the ticking sound.
The brain surgeons believe that the bull
let may be in contact with blood vessel
which sometimes pulsates against it,
causing slight "tick" with each contact.
The term cure" was used with some
reservation by Dr. Lebensohn in report
ing the case. The mental condition
shown by the woman before her suicide
attempt was quite complicated. Pro-
found, recurrent depressions were only
one aspect of it. These have been
cured" The woman, now at home and
adjusting fairly we'll to the routine life
OF housewife, no longer sinks into the
deep melancholias which were RESPONSE
BILE for her previous attempts to kill her
self. This DR.. Lebensohn attributes di-
rectly to the extremely drastic self-surg-
cry which destroyed large amount of
both frontal lobes of the brain Her al
coholism is improved. but the brain sur
geons believe this can be attributed en-
tirely to other causes.
The intelligence remains about as it
was before. There is, however, a tend
ency to drift back toward childhood in
emotional reactions. and an almost con-
stant feeling of well-being The out
standing fact, DR.. Lebensohn points out,
is that the woman no longer worries.
Formerly she used to tie up the most
inconsequential events with their pos
sible serious consequences. Apparently.
he says, the brain connections RESPONSE
BILE for such tie-up have been shattered
and never will be re-esta tablished
Previous records of similar injuries are
few. All have been cases in which the
victim was mentally entirely normal at
the time of the accident. The classic
case in medical literature up to the
present is that of New England railroad
foreman. which happened nearly 100
years ago. A crowbar which he was
using to tamp dynamite was driven
completely through his brain by pre-
mature explosion. He survived the ter
rible injury, but showed strange mental
changes which have been a subject for
debate among surgeons ever since. There
is also, DR.. Lebensohn said, one German
report on about 20 World War soldiers
who received bullets through the front
OF the brain and survived.
But these cases only furnished data
| on the variations from normal behavior
caused by widespread destruction of
brain tissue. The present case affords
opportunity to study the variations in
the opposite direction-from the abnor-
NAL to the normal. No such case of in
tended suicide has been reported before.
The pre-frontal lobes of the brain, the
area just back of the forehead, still are
virtually unexplored area of the human
body. An injury to them, however seri-
Gus, is not fatal, or even physically very
serious, per Sc. They appear to have no
| relation to necessary vital functions. The
probability of infection which will spread
| to vital parts of the BRAIN however, is
very high and the survival of the
woman after such an injury is little
short of a miracle.
Within the past four years surgeons
have developed the surgical operation of
pre-frontal lobotomy in which small
cores of frontal lobe tissue deliberately
are disconnected from the rest of the
brain, especially in cases Of depression.
The operation, however, remains empiri-
CAL The surgeons are probing into un-
known territory. While various theories
have. been advanced, the effects of the
operation still cannot be explained sat-
isfactorily.
The two frontal lobes represent the
farthest physical departure of the hu-
man being from the rest of animal crea-
ton. One theory is that their peculiar
function Is that of tying up events with