Nelson’s Phantom Limb — Belief in the Soul

Generated illustration. Not a historical photograph. A surgical log page. Not a likeness and not a letter facsimile.

Overview

The belief is already on Nelson — Loss of Arm at Tenerife 1797. After the 24 July 1797 amputation Nelson suffered phantom pain. He wrote that it convinced him of the soul: a non-physical sensation after the limb was gone meant something survived bodily death. White p. 119.¹

The Belief

This note covers that belief only. Letter text and a letter date stay off. Nelson’s Prayer Before Trafalgar — Text, Context, and Providential Belief already reserved White p. 119 for a later page.

The 11pm operation and the chloroform-fifty-years remark stay on the arm note and on Eshelby’s Surgical Log — 24 July 1797.²

Sources

• @white2005nelson — p. 119
• Nelson — Loss of Arm at Tenerife 1797

Related

Navigation

• MOC_Religion_Church
• Popular_Belief_Index

Same Subject

• Nelson — Loss of Arm at Tenerife 1797
• Nelson Horatio — Biography Overview
• Eshelby’s Surgical Log — 24 July 1797
• Nelson’s Prayer Before Trafalgar — Text, Context, and Providential Belief

Cross-Domain

• Sword Raised at Santa Cruz — 24 July 1797
• Age of Sail — Era Overview
• Age of Sail — Chronological Timeline

Footnotes

1. Phantom pain after the amputation; wrote that it convinced him of the soul; non-physical sensation after the limb was gone meant something survived bodily death: Nelson — Loss of Arm at Tenerife 1797, Evidence and footnote 2 (White p. 119). Paraphrase only. ↩

2. 11pm operation and chloroform remark stay on the arm and Eshelby notes. Do not recopy letter text. Do not invent a letter date. ↩