FEELING IN LOST LIMBS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 50

FEELING IN LOST LIMBS.

An Inteeestixg Accovst.

Numerous accounts have been given of instances in which those who have been so unfortunate as to lose a limb have declared that they felt pains in the mitring member ; but the following communication to the Liter ary Digest (N.Y.), by H. A. Dobson, M.D., o"f Washington, D.Q. , is .specially interesting : — _ The article " Sense of Feeling in a Lost Limb,"' published in your issue of March 19, interests me very much, and thinking that a briaf statement in regard to the same from a personal standpoint might interest your readers, I lmke it. My left leg was amputated at ihe middle third of the thigh over 34 years ago. The sensation of knee, foot, heel, hollow of foot, and toes being present is stronger than in the other limb. In fact when at rest one is not conscious of any sensation in his limbs in a state 'of health : but in the stump the sensation is ever there, sometimes painfully so. This is no hallucination, but is due to anatomical and plrysiological reasons. Nerves of sensation pass out from the spinal column to every part of the surface of the body, each nerve having its own particular part to supply, and each conveying to the nerve - centre knowledge that its terminal point is being irritated. Thus, a nerve terniii ating at the end of the big toe, no matter vhero it is irritated between the nervecentre and the end of the big toe, will say I to the nerve-centre, " The end of the big toe is, touched or hurt." When a leg is amputated all these nerves are gathered together and covered in by a healing of the stump, and it sometimes happens that they arc firmly bound down by the cicatrix. and as it hardens, pressing upon them, sensations of ppi'i occur, not at the end of the stump, but at the point where each nerve terminated. Just before storms, when the barometric pressure is light, the air within the tissues expands and presses on these nerve ends, causing intense pain sometimes, and there is no relief but to reamputate the limb and pee that the nerves are not caughb in the cicatrix It is generally the stump that perishes away and becomes small that wives (lie most annoyance. Mv lea was amputated in such a position that when I stand it seems to be flexed with the foot behind me. and I have often tried to remove it from the way of persons pissing, and have even tried to put it out to prevent the slamming of n door behir.il me, and much to my surprise the door

did not stop. I have had many a fall in trying to walk, when springing up quickly I tried to put my foot to the floor. I hire seen comrades whose

legs were amputated below the knee, when on crotches, try to put the foot down, and so come heavily on the end of the stump. As I prow older there is a sense of shortening in

the leg. the foot seeming to come nearer the body If I move the muscles of the stump,

i a/3 in the effort to extend tlie knee, a sensaj tion of great heat occurs at once in the : stump, when it may be almost fro/.en with ' cold. l)ry heat sometimes relieves pun in j these stumps, but nothing will relieve permanently except an operation, as above htated.