Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1893 — Wonder-working Surgery. [ARTICLE]

Wonder-working Surgery.

The last case to which I shall refer has uot been published, but can be found in the records of the Orthopedic Hospital and Infirmary for Nervous Diseases in Philadelphia. A young girl of about tweuty-one was admitted to the infirmary in October, 1891. She said that her attacks of epilepsy, from which she had suffered for two years and a half, always began in the right thumb. This fact having been verified, it was decided to remove the centre of the thumb, to stop the very beginning of the fit. It was especially desired to remove only the centre for the thumb, and not that for the hand, in order not to interfere more than was necessary with the usefulness of her hand, upon which she depended for her support, as she was a mill girl. On October 6, 1891, the fissure of Rolando was first located, and a disk of bone an inch and a half in diameter was removed, the centre of it being two and five monkey’s brain—a little above it. Each of these centres was recognized by the movement of the part supplied by it (thumb, face, wrist) when the centre was touched by the poles of the battery. Stimulation of the thumb centre produced a typical epileptic fit, such as she had suffered since her admission, beginning in the thumb, as she had asserted. The portion of brain corresponding to the thumb centre, a piece about half an inch in diameter, was removed, and by the battery it was determined that the portion removed was the whole of the thumb centre.

It was necessary in this case to be unusually accurate, and not to remove any portion of the brain other than the centre for the thumb, and for three reasons: First, if too much were removed upward and backward, the wrist and fingers would be paralyzed; second, if too much were removed forward, the muscles of the face would be involved; third, a little further down lies the centre for speech, and had this part of the brain been injured, this important faculty would have been destroyed. As soon as the patient had recovered from the ether and was in a suitable condition, her ability to move the face and hand was tested. All the muscles of the face were entirely intact, and could be moved with absolute ease. Her speech was also unaffected. She had absolute and perfect control of all the muscles of the shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand, with the single exception of the muscles of the thumb, every one of which was paralyzed.—[Harper’s Magazine.

A miller ninety-four years old is living near Versailles. Ky., in an old water mill that he has been running continuously for upward of eighty years. He started it before the war of 1812, and remained by it all through the civil war, scarce knowing a war was in progress about him, the place is so secluded. He is hale and hearty, can shoulder a sack of grain or flour with ease, and his mind is clear and his life smooth running as the creek he has lived by and listened to for four score years.