Imperial Valley Press

WHISTLE IN HEAD DRIVING LABORER TOWARD COLLAPSE

PHILADELPHIA. Sept. 30. (U.P.) - Surgical science hoped soon to turn off the whistle in George Yocum's head which has brought the 44-year-old coal miner to the brink of nervous collapse.

Ever since he suffered a skull fracture in a mine accident two years ago, Yocum has suffered tortures.

A shrill whistle has screamed constantly in his left ear while a hoarse roar filled his entire head.

Last night in the hospital's surgical amphitheatre doctors wired the spry miner for sound to aid them in diagnosis of his strange malady.

Delicately tuned microphones were placed on his head and from a loudspeaker on the stage came a banshee wail that was the first "broadcast" of what surgery calls a cranial aneurysm.

An aneurysm is a tumor-like "dam" in a blood vessel. The pressure mounts at the point of aneurysm and the blood spurting past the obstruction produces at once a whistle and a roar.

At the same time the walls of the vessel expand to a dangerous thinness. Should they burst, death would result.

Because of the pressure at the aneurysm, directly behind his right eye, Yocum's veins are swollen and the eye protrudes.