628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



perform the operation, two inches and a half of the memher hav- 

 ing thus been lost. The stump could be seen occupying a position 

 as far back as the anterior pillars of the fauces, forward of which point, 

 when the mouth was open, it could not be advanced. Yet this person 

 could talk with little apparent difficulty, giving most of the sounds 

 with ease : s and sh, I, and r, and final <7's, were more or less imper- 

 fect, but d and t were the only ones completely beyond his power. 

 Well-authenticated cases of a similar character have, from time to 

 time, been recorded ; a few of the more remarkable of which are given 

 in the following pages. 



Cutting out the tongue was a form of punishment frequently in- 

 flicted in ancient times. In a. d. 484, sixty Christian confessors of 

 Tipasa, a maritime colony on the north coast of Africa, had their 

 tongues cut out by order of Hunneric, the Vandal conqueror ; but, in 

 a short time, some of them at least were able to speak with such dis- 

 tinctness that they went about preaching again. Pope Leo ILL is 

 said to have suffered a similar mutilation in 799, and afterward re- 

 gained his speech. In the sixteenth century, a band of French Prot- 

 estants were condemned to have their tongues cut out before they 

 were led to the stake. One of them, immediately after the execution 

 of the sentence, repeated three times, " Le nom de Dieu soit beni ! " 

 (God's name be blessed). In another case, the martyrs spoke so dis- 

 tinctly after losing the tongue, that the executioner was accused of 

 having failed to carry out the sentence. 



The ability to speak, after being thus deprived of the tongue, was 

 long accounted miraculous, and regarded as a signal mark of divine 

 favor. Even as late as the present generation this view of the matter 

 has been maintained, in spite of the fact that the accumulated experi- 

 ence of surgeons has demonstrated it to be an entirely natural result, 

 with nothing miraculous about it. 



Sir John Malcolm, writing from Persia in 1828, describes the case 

 of a chief named Zal Khan, who, coming into disfavor with the reign- 

 ing monarch, was condemned to have his eyes put out. Failing in 

 his appeal for a recall of this cruel sentence, Zal Kahn " loaded the 

 tyrant with curses," and, in return, his tongue was ordered to be cut 

 out. This order was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half the 

 member is reported to have deprived him of speech. Being afterward 

 persuaded that, if cut close, he might be able to speak intelligently 

 with the root, he submitted to the operation, and subsequently told 

 his own story to Malcolm. These statements were long doubted, but, 

 in 1857, they were fully confirmed by Sir John McNeill, whose inquiries 

 in Persia, where this mode of punishment is common, led to the dis- 

 covery of many instances of a similar nature. The belief is universal 

 in that country, that excision of the tip of the tongue permanently de- 

 stroys the power of speech, while its removal at or near the root 

 leaves the victim a chance of regaining the ability to again speak his 



