Curious Fact

It is a well authenticated fact that soldiers wounded in the head, on recovery from the wound, have, in some instances, lost all consciousness of their personal identity. The case of a soldier who died recently in one of the Paris hospitals, is a striking confirmation of this fact. Wounded at the battle of Solferino, the wound soon cicatrized , but he has ever since labored under a strange hallucination,, fancying himself dead. When asked how he was, he would reply “You want to know how Pierre Valin is? – Why, he was killed at Solferino. What you see is not Valin, but a machine made to imitate him.

– Published in The Athens Messenger, Athens, Ohio, Thursday Morning, April 24, 1862