A Wonderful Skull.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 26, 11 May 1870, Page 7

A Wonderful Skull.

Nearly twenty years ago the medical jdurnalsof the world recorded a most singular case of a laborer in Cavendish, United States* who, while engaged in blasting, had a tamping iron blown entirely through his head, bat who actually recovered within sixty days. Such a surprising and unprecedented result at the time of its announcement was generally disbelieved, many eminent smgeons pronouncing it a physical impossibility. But the subsequent public exhibition of the individual himself convinced the most sceptical, and verified the first report of Dr John M. Harlow, the attending surgeon, who published the case. At a very recent meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, this gentleman read a paper giving the history of the case, and presented to that body the veritable skull which sustained the injury. The accident occurred on September 13th, 1848, and was caused by the tamping iron striking fire from the rock, qxploding the powder, and driving the bar, which was nearly four feet long by one and a quarter inches diameter, and weighing thirteen pounds, through his head. It entered under the cheek bone, passing inside of an inch behind the eye, and out of the top of the head in the centre, two inches back from the line where the forehead and hair meet. The opening in the skull was two inches wide by three and a half inches long, and the brain was hanging in shreds on the hair. In fifty-nine days the patient was abroad. Soon after, with his tamping iron—which he carried with him until the day of his death—he was exhibited in Barnum's old museum, in the city; and soon after he left for South America. His general health appears to have been good until 1859, when it began to fail. At one time, being then in California, he was taken with epileptic fits, which finally caused his death in May, 1861, twelve years and eight months after the accident. Dr Harlow kept himself informed a3 to the history of his patient, and on his demise obtained possession of both the skull and the iron, and made the statement of the case as given above. The effect of the injury upon the man seems to have caused the destruction of the equilibrium between his internal faculties and the animal propensities. He became capricious, fitful, irreverent, vacillating, impatient of re straint, a child in mind, an adult in physical system and passions. During his South American life he was a coachman, and underwent great hardship. It appears the man could see out of his left eye, though the lid was not subject to Ins will. In summing up his paper, Dr Harlow presented these vie .vs : Ist. The recovery is attributed solely to the vis vitce vis conservatrix, or, if some like it, vis medicatrix natural. 2nd. This case has been cited as one of recovery. Physically the recovery was nearly or quite completed for the four years immedi ately succeeding the injury; but ultimately the patient succumbed to progressive disease of the brain. Mentally the recovery was only partial : there were no dementia; intellectual operations were perfect in kind, but not in degree or quantity. 3rd. That, though the case may seem improbable, the subject was the man for the case, as his will, physique, and power of endurance could scarcely be equalled. The missile was smooth and pointed, dilating and wedging off rather than lacerating the tissues. The bolt did little injury until it entered the" base of the brain, and that opening served as a drain for the blood and matter and other that might have caused death by compression ; the portion of the brain traversed was the part that could stand such a shock with the least injury. The French Mode of Capital Punishment. M. Maxime de Camp not long since made a severe study of the system of capital punishment now practised in Paris. He even went the length of surrendering himself into the hands of the executioner, to be pinioned and thrust under the guillotine, in order that he might more thoroughly enter into the sensation of a condemned criminal, and describe his last moments. He has now embodied his information in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Meeting the convict on his arrival at the Conciergeries after his condemnation, M. de Camp traces his subsequent existence to its close on the scaffold. The first thing done, of course, is to strip the prisoner of all his clothes, and encase him in tho straight-waistcoat in which ho is doomed to spend his few remaining days. The camisole is made of stout sail-cloth, stiff and hard, and is fastened by several strong buckles, with the sleeves sewn up at the end, so that the hands cannot get out. No instrument of metal is left within the prisoner's reach. He is fed with a wooden spoon. Almost always the convict decides upon an appeal against his sentence, if only to oblige his advocate, who seldom fails to discover abundant reasons for such a step. From the Concergerie the convict is conducted to the prison of Grand Roquette. Here, as during his incarceration, he has never a moment of solitude. There is constantly with him a keeper and a spldier, who are both relieved every two hours. They are forbidden to speak to him of anything happening outside of tho

prison. From the outer world no one, as a rule, is admitted to see him. He is regarded already as practically a dead man. After a few days, a frequent impression with him at night is that lie hears the ring of hammers nailing up the scaffold out of doors. When the appeal has been rejected (late at night, in order that Paris may have no warning of the event), the order for the prisoner's execution is despatched to the gaol. Soon after four o'clock in the morning the officials wake him, announce his fate, dress him, and prepare to lead him forth. As sodu as ho emerges from his cell, the confessor takes him into another little room, and there receives his last words, and, wo may presume, gives such absolution or comfort as he can. This lasts only an instant. Then the procession is formed, the priest still at the prisoner's side. There is a halt for a few minutes in the avant-greffe. The prisoner sits down on a stool, the only furniture in the room; and the tall lignre of the executioner appears, accompanied by his assistants, one of them carrying a small carpet-bag. The condemned, supported by two assistants, ascends the steps, and stands upright before the bascule. One of the assistants removes the black cloth that covered the convict's shoulders, and places himself at his right-handside, standing near the red basket. The other man stands at the foot of the bascule. Their parts are all allotted beforehand. While one of the assistants holds the convict by the hair of the head, the other tilts Up the plank upon which he is stretched, so as to raise the head, and presses on the victim's knees. The executioner's business is with the spring that works the krife. Suddenly the blade descends like a gleam of lightning, the blood spouts, and the head leaps into the basket. In an instant the body is also removed, and the gen d'armes are already clearing the way for the funeral cortege at a trot before the crowd is well aware of what has happened. Forty seconds is the whole time between the man putting his foot on the first step of the scaffold and the fall of his head.