A REMARKABLE WOUND OF THE BRAIN.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1031, 2 February 1882, Page 3

A REMARKABLE WOUND OF THE BRAIN.

An instance of singular tolerance of severe wound of the brain was (says the Lancet) recently communicated by M. Dubrisay to the Societe de Medecine de Paris. A man, aged 41, in an attempt at suicide, sent a small dagger through his skull into the brain. The weapon was ten centimetres long and ■one wide. He had held the dagger in bis left hand, and given it .with the right several blows with a mallet, believing that he would fall dead at the first blow. To his profound surprise he felt no pain, and observed no particular phenomenon. He struck the •dagger, in all, about a dozen times. The man was a drunkard, but was aober at the moment of the attempt. When seen, about two hours later, the handle of the dagger was projecting from the skull at the junction of the posterior and middle third, a little to the right of the middle line, and in a transverse position. The whole blade was embedded except a part one centimetre in length. For half an hour unsuccessful attempts were made to get the dagger out. The patient was placed on the ground, two vigorous persons fixed his shoulders, and, aided by a strong pair of carpenter’s pincers, repeated attempts were made, but without success. The patient and assistants were raised off the ground, but the dagger was immovable. These attempts caused no pain. More powerful mechanical instruments were then employed. The patient, who walked well, and complained of no headache, was taken to a coppersmith’s and by strong pincers the handle of the ■dagger was fastened to a chain, which was passed over a cylinder turned by steam power. The pincers, used for firawing out tubes ot copper, were so made that the more they pulled the tighter they grasped. The man was then fastened to rings fixed in the ground, and the cylinder was gently set in motion. At the second turn the dagger came out. The blade measured 10, centimetres in length, of which nine had entered the interior of the skull. The patient, who had submitted with the greatest coolness to these manoeuvres, suffered no pain or inconvenience. Some drops of blood escaped, and in a few minutes afterwards the man was able to walk away to a hospital, where he remained in bed for ten days, but without fever or pain. He then returned to his work, and the wound gradually healed. M. Dubrisay endeavored by a post mortem experiment to ascertain what parts of the brain had been injured. He drove the dagger into the head of a cadaver in the same situation and to the same depth, and found that, without injuring the superior longitudinal sinus, it had passed into the cerebral substance, just behind the motor zone ; the point had not reached the base. The difficulty in extraction had been due solely to the fixation of the instrument by the'edges of the'wodild in the bone.

There is no limit to the hate of the Nihilists. A member of this dreadful body is at work on an attachment to the bagpipe, by which it is said that soul-destroying instrument can be played with a crank, the same as a hand organ.

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