On the origin of pain associated with amputation
pp. 2-14
in: Jean Siegfried, Manfred Zimmermann (eds), Phantom and stump pain, Berlin, Springer, 1981Abstract
Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson lost an arm at the battle of Tenerife in 1797. He wrote to a friend that he could still sense his missing arm and that he took this as evidence for the existence of his eternal soul. Whatever one may think of his conclusion, one wishes that patients could adopt this 18th century attitude of acceptance and curiosity. Unfortunately for many, their lives become dominated by some sensory aspect of their missing limb. In Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, a street-hawker of sheet music has had a leg amputated. He regularly and obsessionally visits a shop where his leg is for sale in a glass jar.
