ger 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 lost parts, so that he will tell you, "Now I feel my
thumb,--now I feel my little finger." I should also add, that nearly
every person who has lost an arm above the elbow feels as though the
lost member were bent at the elbow, and at times is vividly impressed
with the notion that his fingers are strongly flexed.

Another set of cases present a peculiarity which I am at a loss to
account for. Where the leg, for instance, has been lost, they feel as if
the foot was present, but as though the leg were shortened. If the thigh
has been taken off, there seems to them to be a foot at the knee; if the
arm, a hand seems to be at the elbow, or attached to the stump itself.

As I have said, I was next sent to the United States Army Hospital for
Injuries and Diseases of the Nervous System. Before leaving Nashville, I
had begun to suffer the most acute pain in my left hand, especially the
little finger; and so perfect was the idea which was thus kept up of the
real presence of these missing parts, that I found it hard at times to
believe them absent. Often, at night, I would try with one lost hand to
grope for the other. As, however, I had no pain in the right arm, the
sense of the existence of that limb gradually disappeared, as did that
of my legs also.

Everything was done for my neuralgia which the doctors could think of;
and at length, at my suggestion, I was removed to the above-named
hospital. It was a pleasant, suburban, old-fashioned country-seat, its
gardens surrounded by a circle of wooden, one-story wards, shaded by
fine trees. There were some three hundred cases of epilepsy, paralysis,