PHANTOM LIMBS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5047, 3 November 1926, Page 4

PHANTOM LIMBS.

STRANGE RESULT OB AMPUTATION PAINS FELT IN LOST LIMBS. Amputated limbs which seem to their former possessors s.till. to exist are the subject of an. article contributed to “La Liberte” (Paris).

Persons whose limbs have been amputated o'ften have apparent sensations in theii- lost (states the writer). The study of these indicates that they come from, the ends of the severed nerves'. Sometimes, the patient feels ,a sensation, df cold, but shooting pains, are also experienced and sometimes great agony. These sensations are rarely continuous, but are felt in. various circumstances. A drop in the barometer often brings them on, and enables the patient to foretell ,a chajnge of weather. The pain may be ailoused by certain movements, such as coughing. The singular thing is that these sensations are felt at the end of the amputated limb. If the stump be pricked the patient generally localises the prick at the phantom extremity ,at a ( point which varies according to the place where the needle touched, the s'car. In many cases of amputation of the forearm it is possible, by pricking different points on the scar, to give the patient the illusion that he is being pricked at the end of the forefinger, on the back of .the little flinger, in the middle off the palm, etc. The illusion disappears when the nerves immediately unaer th© Scar are anaesthetised, which may easily be done by injections of chcaine. Finally, Weir Mitchell has discovered that when a patient whose limb has been amputated has lost, even for ,a long period, the sensation of that limb’s existence, electric stimulatjdn of the subjacent nerves is' o'ften sufficient to cause the illusion to reappear. These experiences confirm the physiological law by which the irritation off a nerve is always referred by tliQ brain to its extremity.

Not only the nerves ot touch, but those connected with the muscular sense, are subject to the same illusion. Certain patients feel that the phantom limb follows the movements of the stump ; others think that they can voluntarily control the motions of their phantom extremities. It seems to them that they can. extend or bend their arms and open or shut their hands, place their fingers' in the proper position to write, or to play the piano. These illusory movements are observed not only in persons where the motor muscles are partly conserve!, but also when the whole thing or ai]m has been removed. Here the data of the muscular sense are falsely interpreted by the brain, owing to associations of sensations formed when the member was intact. The illusion may be so strong that the patient, although in full possession of his senses, would imagine, if he did not know better, that he still had his ailm or leg. He feels the phantom

limb more plainly than, a real one. “I know yvell, df course,” declared one patient, ‘‘that 1 have no right Jeg, and yet, when I analyse my feelings, I' feel the missing foot move more plainly than the one that is left. The one always hurts, while the other does, not trouble me. If I could not assure myself by looking for it that the painful foot had been cut off I would steadfastly believe that it was still there, I have to use my reason to convince myself of the unreality of my sensations.” When the patients are of perfectly sound mind they rdsist these illusions, which are counteracted by their other senses* But it may be easily understood how an ill-balanced brain might be upset in this way.