men had raised the body, and pulled upon it with much force, but in vain. Finally, he was released by splitting away the plank in which the spike was fixed, with an axe and crowbar.
When Dr. C. saw the patient, an hour and a half after the accident, the spike was still in the head. This was removed, with the fragments of bone that had been driven into the brain, and others were raised to their proper posi- tion. Immediately the man was able to converse rationally, but there was a complete loss of sensibility and motor power throughout the left side. About seventy-two hours afterward severe pain came on in the left arm and leg, and lasted for half an hour, when almost instantly the sensi- bility returned, though the power of motion never did. The pain subsided, and he continued in a rational state until the ninth day, without inflammatory symptoms, and with a pulse that never rose above 70. On that day por- tions of brain were discharged ; the man sank rapidly, and on the following day he died.
On examination after death the brain was found com- pletely broken up, to the extent of 4 in., and to the depth of 2 in.
A portion of a two-inch plank, from which the spike pro- jected, has been sent with this last. 1870.
Dr. Sherman Cooper, of Claremont, N. H. 3109. The iron portion of a pitchfork, one of the prongs of which passed through a man's head.
The patient was an Irishman, about sixty years of age, who fell, feet foremost, through a barn loft, and upon the fork, Sept. 12th, 1860. One prong entered the right cheek, passed under the malar bone, came out a line or two above the coronal suture, about in. to the right of the median line, and protruded about 2 in. ; the man's feet barely touching the floor. The concavity of the prong was for- ward and somewhat outward. After the extraction of the prong, which required some force, he walked to a carriage, rode in a drenching rain two miles, and, unaided, alighted and went up one pair of stairs. Dr. Francis A. Howe, of Newburyport, who sent the pitchfork to Dr. Bigelow, and who gives this account of the case, was called, and found
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