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CONTENTS.

Aunt Judy.

Borneo and Rajah Brooke

Bundle of Bones, A

Case of George Dedlow, The

Childhood, a Study

Chimney Corner for 1866, The. VII., VIII, IX.

Darwinian Theory, The
Distinguished Character, A

Englishman in Normandy, An .

Fall of Austria, The

Farmer Hill's Diary.

Five Hundred Years Ago

Friedrich Kückert

Great Doctor, The. I., II.

F. B. Perkins
Mrs. H. B. Stowe
Charles J. Sprague.

Goldwin Smith

C. C. Haz "vell
Mrs. A. M. Diaz
J. H. A. Bone
Bayard Taylor

Alice Cary

Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy. VIII, IX., X., XI., XII. Charles Rade.
Gurowski

Life Assurance

London Forty Years Ago.

Mania's Confession, A.

My Heathen at Home

Robert Carter

Dr. B. G. Wilder

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Passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books. VII., VIII., IX.,

Physical History of the Valley of the Amazons. I., II.
Larpont, John

Presideat and his Accomplices, The.

Mrs. M. L. Moody

C. C. Hazewell.
Henry James, Jr.

X., XI., XI.
Louis Agais
John Neal

40, 189, 208, 450, 536, 682

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49, 159

650

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Evangeline, Maud Muller, Vision of Sir Launfal, and Flower-de-Luce, Illustrated

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Laugel's United States during the War, and Goldwin Smith's Address on the Civil War in America.
Marcy's Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border

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255-

Miss Ildrewe's Language of Flowers

646

Moens's English Travellers and Italian Brigands, and Abbott's Prison Life in the South

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3

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.

VOL. XVIII-JULY, 1866. — NO. CV.

THE CASE OF GEORGE DEDLOW.

THE

HE following notes of my own case have been declined on various preexts by every medical journal to which I have offered them. There was, perhaps. some reason in this, because many of the medical facts which they record are not altogether new, and because the psychical deductions to which they have led me are not in themselves of medical interest. I ought to add, that a good deal of what is here related is not of any scientific value whatsoever; but as one or two people on whose judgment I rely have advised me to print my narrative with all the personal detals, rather than in the dry shape in which, as a psychological statement, I shail publish it elsewhere, I have yieldet to their views. I suspect, however, that the very character of my record

in the eyes of some of my readers, tes to lessen the value of the metapeycal discoveries which it sets forth.

I am the son of a physician, still in Large practice, in the village of Abington, Sufield County, Indiana. Expectng to act as his future partner, I studed medicine in his office, and in 1859

and 1860 attended lectures at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. My second course should have been in the following year, but the outbreak of the Rebellion so crippled my father's means that I was forced to abandon my intention. The demand for army surgeons at this time became very great; and although not a graduate, I found no difficulty in getting the place of Assistant-Surgeon to the Tenth Indiana Volunteers. In the subsequent Western campaigns this organization suffered so severely, that, before the term of its service was over, it was merged in the Twenty-First Indiana Volunteers; and I, as an extra surgeon, ranked by the medical officers of the latter regiment, was transferred to the Fifteenth Indiana Cavalry. Like many physicians, I had contracted a strong taste for army life, and, disliking cavalry service, sought and obtained the position of First-Lieutenant in the Seventy-Ninth Indiana Volunteers, an infantry regiment of excellent character.

On the day after I assumed command of my company, which had no captain, we were sent to garrison a part

according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

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block-houses stretching Cumberland River below en occupied by a portion Hand of General Rosecrans. e we led while on this duty us and at the same time danthe extreme. Food was d bad, the water horrible, and to cavalry to forage for us. If, try, we attempted to levy supon the scattered farms around population seemed suddenly to ..e, and in the shape of guerillas otted" us industriously from behind tant trees, rocks, or hasty earthworks. ader these various and unpleasant influences, combined with a fair infusion of malaria, our men rapidly lost health and spirits. Unfortunately, no proper medical supplies had been forwarded with our small force (two companies), and, as the fall advanced, the want of quinine and stimulants became a serious annoyance. Moreover, our rations were running low; we had been three weeks without a new supply; and our commanding officer, Major Terrill, began to be uneasy as to the safety of his

men.

About this time it was supposed that a train with rations would be due from the post twenty miles to the north of us; yet it was quite possible that it would by ng us food, but no medicines, which were what we most needed. The command was too small to detach any part of it, and the Major therefore resolved to send an officer alone to the post above us, where the rest of the Seventy Ninth lay, and whence they could easily forward quinine and stimulants by the train, if it had not left, or, it it had, by a small cavalry escort.

It so happened, to my cost, as it turned out, that I was the only officer nt to make the journey, and I was ac cordingly ordered to proceed to Block House No. 3, and make the required arrangements. I started alone just after dusk the next night, and during the darkness succeeded in getting within three miles of my destination. At this time I found that I had lost my way, although aware of the danger of , was forced to turn aside and

ask at a log-cabin for directions. The house contained a dried-up old woman, and four white-headed, half-naked children. The woman was either stone deaf, or pretended to be so; but at al events she gave me no satisfaction, and I remounted and rode away. On coming to the end of a lane, into which 1 had turned to seek the cabin, I found put up during my brief parley. They to my surprise that the bars had beer dismounted to pull them down. As were too high to leap, and I therefor touched the top rail, I heard a rifle, an at the same instant felt a blow on bot arms, which fell helpless. I staggere to my horse and tried to mount; but, a I could use neither arm, the effort wa vain, and I therefore stood still, awai ing my fate. I am only conscious tha I saw about me several Graybacks, fo I must have fallen fainting almost in mediately.

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cabin near by, upon a pile of rubbis When I awoke, I was lying in th about the fire, apparently drawing lo Ten or twelve guerillas were gathere for my watch, boots, hat, etc. 1 no made an effort to find out how far use the left forearm and hand pret was hurt. I discovered that I cou well, and with this hand I felt t right limb all over until I touched t wound. The ball had passed from! rectly through the right arm just bel to right through the left biceps, and the shoulder, emerging behind. right hand and forearm were cold perfectly insensible. I pinched th of sensation remaining; but the h: as well as I could, to test the amo might as well have been that of a d man. I began to understand that nerves had been wounded, and that time my friends had pretty well div part was utterly powerless. By the spoils, and, rising together, out. The old woman then came to and said, "Reckon you'd best git Theyuns is agoin' to take you an To this I only answered, "Wate: ter." I had a grim sense of amus on finding that the old woman wa deat, for she went out, and pres

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came back with a gourdful, which I eagerly drank. An hour later the Graybacks returned, and, finding that I was too weak to walk, carried me out, and laid me on the bottom of a common cart, with which they set off on a trot. The jolting was horrible, but within an hour I began to have in my dead right hand a strange burning, which was rather a relief to me. It increased as the sun rose and the day grew warm, until I felt as if the hand was caught and pinched in a red-hot vice. Then in my agony I begged my guard for water to wet it with, but for some reason they desired silence, and at every noise threatened me with a revolver. At length the pain became absolutely unendurable, and I grew what it is the fashion to call demoralized. I screamed, cried, and yelled in my torture, until, as I suppose, my captors became alarmed, and stopping, gave me a handkerchief, -my own, I fancy, and a canteen of water, with which I wetted the hand, to my unspeakable relief.

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It is unnecessary to detail the events by which, finally, I found myself in one f the Rebel hospitals near Atlanta. Here, for the first time, my wounds properly cleansed and dressed a Dr. Oliver Wilson, who treated throughout with great kindness. I him I had been a doctor; which, aps, may have been in part the e of the unusual tenderness with I was managed. The left arm now quite easy; although, as will seen, it never entirely healed. The arm was worse than ever, the erus broken, the nerves wounded, the hand only alive to pain. I use hrase because it is connected in ad with a visit from a local visitor, im not sure he was a preacher, sed to go daily through the wards, ak to us, or write our letters. One zhe stopped at my bed, when le talk occurred. w are you, Lieutenant?"

said I, "as usual. All right, but ad, which is dead except to pain." ." said he, “such and thus will ked be, such will you be if

you die in your sins: you will go where only pain can be felt. For all eternity, all of you will be as that hand, — knowing pain only."

I suppose I was very weak, but somehow I felt a sudden and chilling horror of possible universal pain, and suddenly fainted. When I awoke, the hand was worse, if that could be. It was red, shining, aching, burning, and, as it seemed to me, perpetually rasped with hot files. When the doctor came, I begged for morphia. He said gravely: "We have none. You know you don't allow it to pass the lines."

I turned to the wall, and wetted the hand again, my sole relief. In about an hour, Dr. Wilson came back with two aids, and explained to me that the bone was so broken as to make it hopeless to save it, and that, besides, amputation offered some chance of arresting the pain. I had thought of this before, but the anguish I felt I cannot say endured - was so awful, that I made no more of losing the limb than of parting with a tooth on account of toothache. Accordingly, brief preparations were made, which I watched with a sort of eagerness such as must forever be inexplicable to any one who has not passed six weeks of torture like that which I had suffered.

I had but one pang before the operation. As I arranged myself on the left side, so as to make it convenient for the operator to use the knife, I asked: "Who is to give me the ether?" "We have none," said the person questioned. I set my teeth, and said no more.

I need not describe the operation. The pain felt was severe; but it was insignificant as compared to that of any other minute of the past six weeks. The limb was removed very near to the shoulder-joint. As the second incision was made, I felt a strange lightning of pain play through the limb, defining every minutest fibril of nerve. This was followed by instant, unspeakable relief, and before the flaps were brought together I was sound asleep. I have only a recollection that I said, pointing

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