Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/644

628 perform the operation, two inches and a half of the member having thus been lost. The stump could be seen occupying a position as far back as the anterior pillars of the fauces, forward of which point, when the mouth was open, it could not be advanced. Yet this person could talk with little apparent difficulty, giving most of the sounds with ease: s and sh, l, and r, and final g' s, were more or less imperfect, but d and t were the only ones completely beyond his power. Well-authenticated cases of a similar character have, from time to time, been recorded; a few of the more remarkable of which are given in the following pages.

Cutting out the tongue was a form of punishment frequently inflicted in ancient times. In 484, sixty Christian confessors of Tipasa, a maritime colony on the north coast of Africa, had their tongues cut out by order of Hunneric, the Vandal conqueror; but, in a short time, some of them at least were able to speak with such distinctness that they went about preaching again. Pope Leo III. is said to have suffered a similar mutilation in 799, and afterward regained his speech. In the sixteenth century, a band of French Protestants were condemned to have their tongues cut out before they were led to the stake. One of them, immediately after the execution of the sentence, repeated three times, "Le nom de Dieu soit béni!" (God's name be blessed). In another case, the martyrs spoke so distinctly after losing the tongue, that the executioner was accused of having failed to carry out the sentence.

The ability to speak, after being thus deprived of the tongue, was long accounted miraculous, and regarded as a signal mark of divine favor. Even as late as the present generation this view of the matter has been maintained, in spite of the fact that the accumulated experience of surgeons has demonstrated it to be an entirely natural result, with nothing miraculous about it.

Sir John Malcolm, writing from Persia in 1828, describes the case of a chief named Zâl Khan, who, coming into disfavor with the reigning monarch, was condemned to have his eyes put out. Failing in his appeal for a recall of this cruel sentence, Zal Kahn "loaded the tyrant with curses," and, in return, his tongue was ordered to be cut out. This order was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half the member is reported to have deprived him of speech. Being afterward persuaded that, if cut close, he might be able to speak intelligently with the root, he submitted to the operation, and subsequently told his own story to Malcolm. These statements were long doubted, but, in 1857, they were fully confirmed by Sir John McNeill, whose inquiries in Persia, where this mode of punishment is common, led to the discovery of many instances of a similar nature. The belief is universal in that country, that excision of the tip of the tongue permanently destroys the power of speech, while its removal at or near the root leaves the victim a chance of regaining the ability to again speak his