Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/687

Rh which the words which he was just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had kicked him; the last thing before he was insensible which he did remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her ears viciously.

Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain. Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as certainly stop a thought or a volition. In both cases a good recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the brain; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery, slow, degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years afterward, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps eventual destruction, of mind. Now the instructive matter in this case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and sometimes is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterioration of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin investing membranes of the brain; and, once damaged, it is seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain. Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum, who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the worse in his character and habits; whereas he had formerly been cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly, suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow workmen, and impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased; he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the victim of a conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been fractured there was a well-marked