Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1909 — REMARKABLE OPERATION. [ARTICLE]

REMARKABLE OPERATION.

Surgeons Open Skull and Cut Out Nerve to Prevent Suicide. Physicians who are here attending the convention of the American Neurological Association saw a woman who had been saved from suicide by a daring and successful operation for ear neuralgia, the first of Its kind ever performed. Mts. A had been afflicted for several years with violent and piercing pains in the ear. At times they were so excruciating that she screamed in agony, and it was impossible to alleviate them appreciably with powerful drugs. Life was unbearable, and several times she threatened self-destruction. Seven physicians treated her in vain. She finally cam 6 under the care of Dr. Clark, who has paid special attention to all forms of nerve disease. He made an elaborate study and found that the malady was not face neuralgia, as had been supposed, but that it was due to the condition of the nerve connecting the geniculate ganglion with the brain. Dr. Clark decided it would be necessary to sever this filament, known as the pars intermedia, which lies between the seventh facial and eighth auditory nerves. Mrs. was informed that the operation was a daring one and that it involved risk. She said she would gladly undergo it, as life was not worth living and that if she died as a result of the operation, she would be better off than if she continued to live without finding relief. Dr. Clark consulted with Dr. Taylor, the well-known surgjeon, who performed the operation five times on deaid bodies before Mrs. A. was placed on the operating table. Her skull was trephined back of the ear and part of the bone was broken down. This gave an opening a quarter of an inch in diameter. An instrument was put down for three inches, the cerebellum was lifted and by means of a small electric light the nerves were revealed. A small glass drainage tube was put in place, as the use of a sponge or any such substance would have produced a dangerous pressure. By means of a small hook the nerve was raised and then severed. The surgeons could see plainly the nerve controlling respiration, the cisturbing of which would have caused death. The variation of an eighth of an inch through any cause would, in the opinion of Dr. Clark, have proved fatal. He spoke in highest terms of the skill of Dr. Taylor, who had operated in accordance with his diagnosis. The ganglion is now not deprived of nourishment, although it no longer connects with the brain. —New York Herald.