Year: 1875

Ed. chronological Journal-Sr Hut
chinson's Physiology gives an account of
a miner who had an iron driven through
his head, entering below his ear and COM
ing out at the top, carrying portion of
the brain away. He recovered without
any further injury than the loss of an
eye. Did such case ever occur2


Ans The case you refer to, but which
you state incorrectly, occurred in the
town of Cavendish VT, about the year
1874, and an account of the affair was
published in the Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal by DR.. Harlow, the ply
sician who attended him. whom also we
know and with whom we have conversed
on the subject After the death of the
patient, perhaps fifteen years later, the
skull was procured, and is now in the
Boston Medical Museum, we believe.
| Engravings illustrating the skull and the
iron bar which was driven through it,
have also been published.


The facts are these: The man was
tamping a charge for blasting with an
iron bar, round in FORM and tapering to
point at the upper end, the lower end
| being about one and quarter inches in
diameter. The blast exploded and drove
the tamping iron, or "crowbar," as it has
been enormously called, upward and
through the face and head 1t went in,
not under the ear, but under the cheek
bone, nearer to the nose than to the ear,
passing behind the eye, cutting off the
optic nerve, and passing out at the top
of the head, about two inches back from
where the hair commences to grow, in
the neighborhood of Benevolence and
the front part of Veneration As the
iron was tapering, it separated the matter
of the brain and also the matter of the
cheek and bones, somewhat as bodkin
-or skewer would separate the fbers of
meat. dividing the fbers without seri-
ously lacerating the parts. If bodkin
be pushed through roll of cloth, it will
make hole by merely pressing apart the
fbers. The same would be true with
bayonet thrust in the thick part of the
leg


Of course there was terrible shock to
the head and brain The bar weighed
thirty-two pounds, and was nearly three
feet long; and after passing through the
head it went high in air and fell to the
ground, perhaps one hundred and fifty
feet from the injured man. There was
Inflammation and ultimate sloughing,
with copious discharge through the
cheek, and as there was hole from the
bottom upward, whatever sloughing or
discharge the brain might make was
through the lower opening. The man
had good constitution, and recovered;
but during the course of his illness he
was profane, irreverent, disrespectful, ex-
tremely coarse and vulgar in his remarks,
so much so, that persons of delicacy, es-
pecially women, found it impossible to
endure his presence. These traits had
not been manifested by him previously.


This case must be regarded as one of
the wonders of injury and of surgical
skill Some men have had bullets shot
through the lungs, and others have re-
ceived saber wounds that went entirely
through the body, and they have recov-
cred; while Others, receiving a silver un-
der the nail, have been thrown into lock-
jaw and died. Sometimes one receives
blow on the head from the fiat of
mans hand, and the conclusion produces
death. Yet none of these classes of in
jury, the very severe or the very slight,
constitute the rule. The great general
public error, however in reference to
that most people suppose it was an in
strument with blunt end, one and
quarter inches in diameter, and that it
went careering and tearing its way
through the BRAIN yet the man got well.
sidered and when it is remembered that
nearly the whole length of that bar was
worn smooth by being much handled,
the case will seem less mysterious. We
may add that the point was not sharp
it was perhaps as large as a common lead
pencil at the small end, but small enough
and sharp enough to divide the matter
through which it was driven.