MYSTERY OF THE BRAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 25

MYSTERY OF THE BRAIN

Still unconscious," figuring in so many medical bulletins is a ,term not always fully understood by the layman, says a writer in the "Daily Mail." How long is it possible for the brain to be deprived of conscious function and yet recovery be made? Experience has revealed that the brain, although one of the most delicate structures, is able to withstand tremendous derangement and yet come through the ordeal with success. Sometimes unconsciousness .has prevailed for as long as six weeks, and ultimate recovery has taken place. • It is impossible to forecast the progress of an individual case, and the outlook, it must be understood, is always grave. What happens to the brain in such cases of head injury is that the physical violence of the accident throws into a state of nervous commotion and shock the vital nerve elements in the brain, and this structure, just as the skin on the surface of the body, suffers widespread bruising ?and undergoes an appreciable degree of swelling. In cases where there is actually gross injury to the brain substance recovery is possible. Unconsciousness is a feature, of course, belonging to many types o£ illness. Its technical name is coma. By this we mean a sleep-like state which differs from natural sleep in that the individual is not rouseable

by the application of stimuli which would awaken a natural sleeper. - In severe states of bacterial poisoning coma occurs and is always of grave moment. An example of pur-posely-induced coma is met with in the induction of general anaesthesia. Inflammation of the brain (meningitis) is frequently associated with deep insensibility, and in some forms of this serious malady, after months of wavering in the unconscious state between life and death, recovery takes place. In everyday life instances of coma are provided by the poisonous action of drugs, often taken by individuals racked by lack of sleep. The dangerous misuse of the barbituric narcotic drugs has provided' many tragic instances of death of this type. Sometimes the body manufactures its own poisons to cause insensibility, and poisoning of this order is met with in diabetes and in cases of severe kidney disease. A final word must be said about the state of trance. Here there is profound unconsciousness which may endure for years, but in this instance the state of unconsciousness is a rouseable one, and the patient may be induced to sit up and to take meals, although between whiles he lapses into a deathlike sleep. A remarkable feature of these cases is the wonderful state of preservation of th^rau^cles^ and...geaerarphyßiflue,.,^.