The Atlantic Monthly | Page 6

I was forwarded to Philadelphia, in order to enter
what was then known as the Stump Hospital, South Street. This favor
was obtained through the influence of my father's friend, the late
Governor Anderson, who has always manifested an interest in my case,

for which I am deeply grateful. It was thought, at the time, that Mr.
Palmer, the leg-maker, might be able to adapt some form of arm to my
left shoulder, as on that side there remained five inches of the arm bone,
which I could move to a moderate extent. The hope proved illusory, as
the stump was always too tender to bear any pressure. The hospital
referred to was in charge of several surgeons while I was an inmate,
and was at all times a clean and pleasant home. It was filled with men
who had lost one arm or leg, or one of each, as happened now and then.
I saw one man who had lost both legs, and one who had parted with
both arms; but none, like myself, stripped of every limb. There were
collected in this place hundreds of these cases, which gave to it, with
reason enough, the not very pleasing title of Stump-Hospital.
I spent here three and a half months, before my transfer to the United
States Army Hospital for nervous diseases. Every morning I was
carried out in an arm-chair, and placed in the library, where some one
was always ready to write or read for me, or to fill my pipe. The
doctors lent me medical books; the ladies brought me luxuries, and fed
me; and, save that I was helpless to a degree which was humiliating, I
was as comfortable as kindness could make me.
I amused myself, at this time, by noting in my mind all that I could
learn from other limbless folk, and from myself, as to the peculiar
feelings which were noticed in regard to lost members. I found that the
great mass of men who had undergone amputations, for many months
felt the usual consciousness that they still had the lost limb. It itched or
pained, or was cramped, but never felt hot or cold. If they had painful
sensations referred to it, the conviction of its existence continued
unaltered for long periods; but where no pain was felt in it, then, by
degrees, the sense of having that limb faded away entirely. I think we
may to some extent explain this. The knowledge we possess of any part
is made up of the numberless impressions from without which affect its
sensitive surfaces, and which are transmitted through its nerves to the
spinal nerve-cells, and through them, again, to the brain. We are thus
kept endlessly informed as to the existence of parts, because the
impressions which reach the brain are, by a law of our being, referred
by us to the part from which they came. Now, when the part is cut off,

the nerve-trunks which led to it and from it, remaining capable of being
impressed by irritations, are made to convey to the brain from the
stump impressions which are as usual referred by the brain to the lost
parts, to which these nerve-threads belonged. In other words, the nerve
is like a bell-wire. You may pull it at any part of its course, and thus
ring the bell as well as if you pulled at the end of the wire; but, in any
case, the intelligent servant will refer the pull to the front door, and
obey it accordingly. The impressions made on the cut ends of the nerve,
or on its sides, are due often to the changes in the stump during healing,
and consequently cease as it heals, so that finally, in a very healthy
stump, no such impressions arise; the brain ceases to correspond with
the lost leg, and, as les absents ont toujours tort, it is no longer
remembered or recognized. But in some cases, such as mine proved at
last to my sorrow, the ends of the nerves undergo a curious alteration,
and get to be enlarged and altered. This change, as I have seen in my
practice of medicine, passes up the nerves towards the centres, and
occasions a more or less constant irritation of the nerve-fibres,
producing neuralgia, which is usually referred to that part of the lost
limb to which the affected nerve belongs. This pain keeps the brain
ever mindful of the missing part, and, imperfectly at least, preserves to
the man a consciousness of possessing that which he has not.
Where the pains come and go, as they do in certain cases, the subjective
sensations thus occasioned are very curious, since in such cases the
man loses and gains, and loses and regains, the consciousness of the
presence of