Mysteries of the Brain

New Zealand Tablet, 18 October 1906, Page 33

Mysteries of the Brain

In the course of his interesting article on ' Modern Surgery, 1 in ."M'Clure's M4gazni€,' Dr. Samuel ''Hopkins Adams writes of the surgeons and the mysteries of the brain, as follows :—: — ' American brain surgery ' started in a Massachusetts stone quarry. Ah Irish laborer, jamming a crowbar into a hole where part of " a charge of dynamite was .lying . in . wait, , produced the logical result, the crowbar entering the head at . the side" of the-jaw aitd projecting a foot out beyond the vault of the skull. The foreman notified the coroner ; some one else sent for k doctor. The doctor got there first, ?rem'ovei« the 'crowbar and. , took the patient to; the "Hospital,"' where, to the amazement of the * entire profession; the man recovered. Up to that time the brain substance had been regarded as prohibited territory, but, the doctors reasoned, surely a surgeon's knife can go where a. one-inch crowbar can pass without fatal results. '

The- golden age of brain surgery seemed dawning. It was a false hope. There are few practitioners of this speciality, I think, who would be willing, for the honor of their profession, to have the history of the; following decade of experimentation frankly related. Insanity, idiocy, and death were the ; results which brought? the adventurous operators to their better senses amd to this conclusion : that the cerebellum, or lower, lobe ,of jthe brain, .in which" lie /the' nerve centres, can never be touched by_ the knife with; impunity, and that only as the last hope and' on? the surest •diagnosis should' the knife be used there. For, even though the operator, pushing boldly in where, to quote Sir Astley Cooper, " there is only 'thb thinness of paper between eternity and. his instrument," eva^e adroitly the infinitely delicate mechanism that controls life itself , even though his complete task* be followed by no hemorrhage, as is usjially, the fatal case ; yet such is the nature of the substance on which he 6P7 crates, that the scar he leaves .is in itself hardly less baneful ' than the eradicated injury. Surgery of the cerebellum has hardly gorfe bcy'orid diagnosis. Wonderful indeed' is, this diagnosis, which * traces, a sensation, at the finger-tip, along the infiniter lyz. diversified' telegraph, system, of the- nerves^ .to its destination in the/ recesses ;* <j>f the brain ;. Qif refers the sudden, twitching" h,t\ a: toe-muscle' to stimulation of sQme, exactly defihed portion of the cerebral apparatus. But,' except,-. in the case of a"fe^ ..maladies like epilepsy, or -injuries , producing "removable pressure from without upon the brain substance, it indicates -no . cure. The area- of knowledge is small, th'e J i area af ignorance great, and th-e best men dare prophesy no radical progress.' "~