WHISTLED UNTIL HE DIED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2172, 10 March 1903, Page 2

WHISTLED UNTIL HE DIED.

PoIImK Herdsman Kept It Up Even While Unconscious from Fatal Injury. Dr. William Krauss, in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, describes the case of a Polish herdsman, 37 years of age, weighing 230 pounds, months previous to an accident. had suffered from apoplexy resulting in left hemiplegia. He was slowly recovering the use of his arm and leg when he was struck by a train, and was found unconscious on the track, with scalp wounds. There was a depressed fracture -of the skull three inches above and one inch behind the left ear. He was imme-

diately trephined and the depressed bone removed.At ten o’clock at night he began to whistle, not, however, the “popu’ar songs of the day,” but the whistle calls he was accustomed to use in calling or driving his flocks. He would continue whistling for about one minute, then would cease for five or ten minutes, and kept this up at regular intervals until he died, January 3, 1890, at 10:30 o'clock p. m. At newtime was it possible to distinguish any melody. The sounds were of the same pitch and intensity and of the same character. They Acre audible throughout the ward and attracted the attention of patients and affidavits. To the physicians in attendance it was a strange experience to hear those whistle calls coming from a patient in a stab' of unconsciousness. It was impossible to rouse the patient at any time before or after the accident, and he died, whistling a few minutes before death.