Word: demas
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Dates: during 1937-1937
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Since last spring when a Berkeley, Calif, surgeon sawed two holes in her skull "to let out the pain," as she understood the purpose of the operation, Dema Dunlap, 23, a buxom, introspective epileptic, had an irresistible compulsion to finger her scalp where it lay sewn over the trephine holes. The soft spots, yielding under pressure of her finger tips, felt like the germinal depressions of a coconut...
After her operation, Dema Dunlap suffered few epileptic attacks, but more headaches. A week ago her head seemed ready to burst. Fingering her right temple seemed to help. The harder she pressed the better her head felt. An idea developed in her dulled wits. The young woman found a 4-in. spike, 316 in. in diameter. The sharp point of this she pressed into her scalp over a trephine hole. It hurt a little, but it made her feel better. Reaching her left hand over her head, she held the spike in position and with her right fist pounded...
...rest of that day she behaved in her usual introspective way. She went to bed and slept as usual, rose as usual. Next day she casually told her mother what she had done. Her mother drove Dema Dunlap to Dr. Kosterlitz, who refused to believe the young woman's story until he saw the projecting butt of the spike. He rushed her to a hospital where he extracted the nail. Then she fainted. There was some chance for her recovery, for a person can live with a large part of his brain gone. In Harvard's anatomical museum...