SCIENTIST’S HEROISM

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6551, 7 March 1928, Page 2

SCIENTIST’S HEROISM

- -SACRIFICE FOR RESEARCHMARTYR TO NERVE DISEASE. A world-famous British neurologist who is oho of tho most horoic martyrs to medical research, is now tho helpless victim of a mysterious and insidious disease on which ho is possibly the greatest living authority. Ho is Sir Henry Head, who has made some of tho most important cohtributions of modern times to the knowledge of nervous disorders, and is also celebrated in medical history as the voluntary subject of one of the most fearsome experiments that has ever been made in tho cause of scientific progress. The incurable disease from which he is suffering—a form of creeping paralysis —is one of which he has made a life study. » Sir Homy retired from practice and threw up his many distinguished appointments about eighteen months ago, when the first symptoms of the disease appeared, and ho has lived since at Forston House, his country home, about, five miles from Dorchester.

A nurse is in constant attendance, and a young specialist, who is one of Sir Henry’s old pupils, frequently comes down from London to consult with the patient on the treatment of tha disease. Sir Henry is able to walk, although with some difficulty, and he often goes for long drives through the country, but ho has lost the use of his fingers, and cannot write. Medical men from all parts of the world still correspond with him on abstruse problems of neurology, and Sir Henry dictates his replies to his wife. Nearly twenty years ago Sir Henry deliberately risked contracting paraly--1 sis by a dangerous experiment be undertook in tho cause of medical research. He has the nerves of his left arm severed near the elbow, for the purpose of studying, by personal experience, the'problem of “deep sensibility.’’ Dr. Head prepared himself specially for tho sacrifice. He neither smoked nor drank alcoholic liquors, and lived a life of rigorous self-denial. His fellow-practitioners declare that tho action of Dr. Head was worthy to rank with the noblest ever recorded in the anna>: of science. When tho sacrifice was made, leading nerve specialists in the country I watched the case, and were able to ac- ; quire new knowledge of the way in which messages are conveyed by tbo nerves to the brain. Accidents in which these nerves have been severed have, moreover, since received more effective treatment than ever before in the history of surgery. The disease which is now afflicting Sir Henry Head is a rare disorder known as Parkinson’s disease. It was discovered one hundred years ago, and can be caused by adhesion of tho nerves, but Lady Head will not believe that her husband’s illness is attributed to his experiment. “His arm healed up perfectly,’’ she said. “I think tho disease must have been brought on by overwork. “It is incurable, but it does not I attack life. My husband, of course, is only too familiar with every phase of the disease. “He often remarks how easy it was for him to tell patients who used to be sent to him with tho disease that they must resign themselves to sleeplessness, and that they must bear this I and put up with that. He is sorry now that ho could not quite appreciate how nard life was for them.’’