Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1887 — STRANGE MENTAL CLOUDS. [ARTICLE]

STRANGE MENTAL CLOUDS.

BY DAVID SWING.

The eclipse of memory, writes Professor Swing, in the Chicago Evening Journal, which has suddenly fallen upon the once bright mind of a Chicago young lady awakens, indeed, widespread sympathy for the young beauty and her home circle, but it also compels us to perceive that the different fatuities occupy different parts of the brain-tissue, and thus a calamity to a beloved girl casts light upon the physical basis of intellectual action. This lady awoke from a sleep and did not know her own sister or the other members of her family. Her mother lingered upon the borders of some well-known being, but to her sister and brother and father she spoke as to strangers. Her language, her reasoning power, her happiness remained, but the world of persons had vanished, to be succeeded by interesting people, but persons who were unknown. Thus upon some part of the brain a disease had fallen and the faculty which had for twenty years occupied that apartment was rudely evicted. It may be there is some part of the brain which is the seat of consciousness and that the little nerve which leads from the memory of persons to that citadel of consciousness has been injured, and that therefore no communication can be made from the suburb to the central city. Blindness results from some paralysis of a little thread which runs from the eye to the brain, and, while the eye itself may be perfect and the consciousness perfect in ability, yet, owing to the injury to the intermediate nerve, the image on the retina can not pass over to the consciousness. Seeing takes place in the dark caverns of the brain, but the image can not travel in the dark if the bridge be down between, for the abyss is bottomless. In the case of Miss L., the injury may be only to some nerve delicate as a spider’s web. Nature may repair the injury, and the lost persons may all return suddenly as they departed. Generally such injuries are irreparable, but we are glad that they are not always so. Some years ago Mr. Frank Whetstone, of Cincinnati, became suddenly deranged. He knew and loved all his friends, his city, his home, but his judgment was gone, and he was dangerous because his love was liable to make him offer up himself or some person to the honor of some one else. He was taken to the Columbus Asylum; and after a few weeks his reason came back, and came instantly. He saw at once that he was in an asylum. He sent for the Superintendent, and told him that his perfect reason had come back. He was soon back among his friends, tMd never suffered from a return of the malady. The Rev Marcus Ormond, of Oxford, Ohio, was stricken instantly with the loss of his language. He knew” his children, wife and all his friends, but he could not recall the name of any one or of any thing. Language had gone. He was not dumb, but he did not know what words to use. His world was all around him, but the names of things had departed. ' Sitting by his window one day, perhaps a month after the attack, he suddenly uttered the word “peach” to some blossoms which were near the window. He retained great physical power and all his reasoning faculties. The blight had fallen upon the names of things. Very slowly words came back until he could count upon a hundred or two of terms, but he never was able to command words enough to enable him to resume any work as a public speaker. He must have lost thousands of these names in an instant of time. There is no microscope that could have learned what nerve it was which thus became impaired and cut off names from the central consciousness. Alter some boys had leturned from a circus they attempted to rival the gymnasts they bad just seen, and they began with tho hand-spring act. One lad fell rather heavily upon his head and neck, and deafness set in and became total. The youth of that unhappy hour in the circus is now a man of twenty-four or twenty-five, but the world of sounds has left him never to return. He was a musician and can now play the piano for others, while to his own heart there comes no sound whatever from the instrument. Some thread was snapped in that moment of innocent play. Not all of the brain is made use of by the -dental powers. A large part of it is, perhaps, only the hull of the nut or the bark of the tree. It may be the supply train which follows the working and fighting army. A Mr. Jessup, of Hanv.lton, Ohio, shot a Mr. Smith through the head just above the ear. The ball went through the head. But Mr. Smith only did not die but he suffered no particular injury from the invasion of his brain-chamber. He was put to bed and was expected to breathe his last in a few minutes, but he did not meet the public expectation. Thus, after we have chased the mind into the brain, we are still ignorant of the part played in intellectual action by this or that part of the bulk total. Mr. W ebster had a large brain, but we do not know what was the office of his extra ounces. They may have been supply stores, which were fed out to the toiling cells within. It is sad that the bright and happy mind of Miss L. should now be found among these abnormal phenomena of nature; it is pitiful to think that her scepter of friendship has departed, and that, able and willing to love many friends, she has come to the sad pass of not knowing a sister or brother from a stranger. Perhaps all this cloud will suddenly pass away and the lost will be found.