CASES OF INJURY OF THE BRAIN, INVOLVING 
SPEECH. 
By P. R. Hoy, M. D., Racine, Wis. 
TN October, 1842, I was called to see James Lawson, aged 
18 a resident of New Haven, Ohio. 
I found him comatose. There was a fracture of the skull, 
occupying the anterior superior angle of the left parietal bone, 
caused by the kick of a horse. He was insensible during the 
operation of trephining and removing fragments of bone, 
which left an opening as large as a half dollar. Soon after the 
operation he fully recovered his senses. 
On the morning of the third day I found the patient coma- 
tose. I cut the stitches and opened the wound, when there 
escaped a clot of blood and a small quantity of bloody serum. 
As soon as this cause of pressure was removed he became not 
only conscious, but was able to converse freely. I exposed 
the brain in order to ascertain the source of the haemorrhage. 
As the dura mater was not injured, it occurred to me that the 
case afforded a good opportunity for experiment. 
When the patient was asked a question that involved a con- 
siderable degree of mental effort there was an increased mo- 
tion of the brain, accompained by a decided increase of the 
flow of blood in the small vessels of the brain, which con- 2 
gestion gradually subsided as soon as the mind came to rest. 
I next asked him a question, and immediately made firm 
pressure, with my thumb, on the exposed brain. As long as 
the pressure was continued he remained silent, but the in- 
stant I lifted my finger, he would reply, never suspecting that 
he had not answered at once. These experiments were re- 
peated again and again with precisely the same results. 
For fear that I might be censured for exposing the person’s 
life in my young zeal for science, I will say that he recovered 
without another bad symptom, and is still living, a healthy 
man. 
Dr. Thos. Johnson and Dr. Orlando Steward, of New Haven, 
Ohio, were present at the operation. 
Dr. Johnson remarked that he had always supposed the 
mind was the immortal part of man—the soul, but these ex- 
periments showed the brain to be a machine for the manu- 
facture of thoughts, for in this case you are able to control the 
boy’s thoughts, stop and start the brain, as an engineer his 
locomotive. 
August, 1856, John Loftus, an English boy, aged 19, was 
working in Mount Pleasant, Racine County, Wisconsin. He 
was ordered to ride the mare, Dolly, to town, and leave her 
colt in the stable. While struggling with the colt the mare 
kicked him on the head. 
Those who witnessed the accident supposed him to be 
killed, but finding that he soon began to breathe, sent for a 
surgeon. 
I found a fracture and depression at the superior border of 
the os frontis, a little to the left of the mesial line. Dr. S. W. 
Wilson assisted in the operation. As soon as the depressed 
portion of the bone was removed, the patient sang out, 
"Whoa, Dolly,” with great energy, and then stared about him 
in amazement, and demanded, "where is the mare, where am 3 
I, what has happened?” Three hours had elapsed since the 
accident, and yet the word that he was just about to utter re- 
mained locked up by the pressure, to be articulated the mo- 
ment that pressure was removed. Loftus had a good recovery. 
He was not conscious that Dolly had kicked, but recollected 
that she wheeled around with her heels towards him, and laid 
back her ears. It may be interesting to state that the locality 
of the fracture in these two cases was nearly at the same point. 
The following remarkable case was related by Prof. R. D. 
Mussey, of the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, to the 
class of 1840, in a lecture on the physiology of the brain. I do 
not know whether it has ever been published. 
A man living in Vermont was standing near his mill, banter- 
ing with his son about shooting a kingfisher that was perched 
on a dry snag that projected from the water in the pond. The 
son fired and the rifle ball, a small one, missed the bird, 
ricochetted and struck the father near the middle of the fore- 
head. He dropped instantly, and for a long time it was thought 
impossible for him to recover; but time wore on, and he still 
lived, a mere animal, incapable of speech, for 15 years, at 
which time there appeared a slight elevation of the skull at the 
crown of the head. 
Dr. Mussey was called and trephined the spot, when he was 
enabled to remove the flattened ball that had remained so long 
within the skull. In a few moments the old man called out, 
“Zeke, you dog, you missed it!” “Missed what?” asked the 
doctor. “Why, the kingfisher!” This was the first word 
spoken since the accident, and he could not understand that 
the report of the rifle was not still reverberating over the 
water at that moment. Zeke was married, had a family, and 
was living in the West. The father had grown gray, and all 
was changed. A Rip Van Winkle in reality. 
—From Journal of Nervous Diseases.