The seat of the soul and its immortality : inferred from the cases of persons who have suffered amputation of their limbs / by James Gillingham.

  • Gillingham, James.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The seat of the soul and its immortality : inferred from the cases of persons who have suffered amputation of their limbs / by James Gillingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The third case is that of a patient who had his foot torn off in a thrashing machine seventeen years ago. He still feels his foot, which is very sensitive, to the present time. The fourth case is that of a patient who had both his hands blown off whilst ramming home a charge at the month of a cannon. He was taken home shortly after the accident, and they were about to carry him upstairs, when he expressed a wish to walk up. In ascending the stairs, not thinking for the moment that his hands were off, he stretched out his arms to grasp the baluster, when suddenly he exclaimed, “ Oh God ! I have lost my hands ! ” The fifth case is that of a patient who had his leg amputated, or taken out of the socket, at the hip-joint. I asked him, whilst he was lying in the hospital, whether he felt his foot and leg. His reply was, “ Yes; more so than I do the sound limb.” The sixth case is that of a patient who had his leg taken off under the knee, owing to an injury caused by the explosion of a gun. He says: “ I still feel that I have a leg which I can never lose; and have many a time put down my hand to feel it, when suddenly I have found myself grasping an insensible piece of wood.” The seventh case is that of an old man with a wooden leg, whom I met by the way. “ Well, my man,” I asked, “ can you feel your foot ? ” “ Yes, sir,” replied he, “and my ankle too, as sensitive as ever.” “How long have you lost your leg ?” “ Over forty years.” The eighth case is that of a patient who had suffered the amputation of his leg, in consequence of a white swelling, when eighteen years of age. He departed this life not long since at the age of seventy-two. I knew him personally. I was anxious to know whether, after he had lost his leg fifty-four years, time had worn out this sensitive feeling. On my inquiring of his daughter, she said she had heard her father say that he had many a time felt his leg, and that in his last illness the limb became more sensitive than ever. When he turned in bed, and moved one leg, he moved the other also. The ninth case is that of a patient who has had his shoulder-blade and arm taken out altogether. He now lives, and enjoys health. I had been corresponding -with him a short time, and was very anxious to know whether the taking away so large a portion of the body cut off the connection of the feeling of the hand and arm. I took the liberty of asking him. He kindly replied, and said : “ All that can be said of the gamekeeper can be said of me. I feel my hand and arm plainer than ever. By day my arm is close to my body, and my hand rests upon my hip; but by night my hand and arm rest over my chest.” The tenth and last case I offer is that of a boy nearly fifteen years of age, who had both his legs cut off by an engine running over him on the Great Northern Railway at Lincoln. One leg was cut off above the knee, and left on the line; the other just under the knee, and left suspended by a piece of skin. The boy was perfectly sen¬ sible, and while on the stretcher at the hospital he was asked where the accident happened. In reply he said, “ Let me jump up, and I will run and show you.” A few weeks after the operation he got out of bed one morning to dress, not know¬ ing that he had lost his legs, consequently he fell on the two ends of his stumps, which were much injured. Many other cases might be given; but the foregoing will suffice. I will now come to the second part of my subject, namely, the truths which the above facts teach from reason. Do they not teach this: that the spirit dwells in every part of the man, while the head is the centre of action ? The material man and the spiritual man have the same shape. The body is a compound; it can be separated and destroyed. The spirit is an indivisible and substantial being, and can-