Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1891 — Feeling In an Amputated Foot. [ARTICLE]

Feeling In an Amputated Foot.

Many consider the idea that a man can feel pain in an amputated limb as a superstitious absurdity, says Dr. William "Waldo in the St. Louis' GlobeDemocrat, but this opinion is a mistake. All the sensations that an injury to a foot would occasion, for instance, may be felt by one whose foot is amputated. There is a good physiological reason for this in the fact that many of the nerves that furnish communication between the brain are not injured in their activity by the amputation of their lower portion, and convey sensations as readily as ever. The brain fails to recognize the fact that the function of the nerves has changed, and that the part in wjiich it formerly terminated exists no longer. Therefore, when a sensation is felt conveyed by a nerve that in the unmaimed body led to the foot, the feeling is the same as if the foot was still in place. If certain nerves in an amputated leg be touched, the feeling is exactly the same as if the foot was touched, and the sensation of pain is felt, not where it is applied, mit where the mind has been in the habit of receiving communications from the nerve in question.