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Springer Theses
Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research

Francesco Fanelli

Development and
Testing of Navigation
Algorithms for
Autonomous
Underwater Vehicles
Springer Theses

Recognizing Outstanding Ph.D. Research

Aims and Scope

The series “Springer Theses” brings together a selection of the very best Ph.D.
theses from around the world and across the physical sciences. Nominated and
endorsed by two recognized specialists, each published volume has been selected
for its scientific excellence and the high impact of its contents for the pertinent field
of research. For greater accessibility to non-specialists, the published versions
include an extended introduction, as well as a foreword by the student’s supervisor
explaining the special relevance of the work for the field. As a whole, the series will
provide a valuable resource both for newcomers to the research fields described,
and for other scientists seeking detailed background information on special
questions. Finally, it provides an accredited documentation of the valuable
contributions made by today’s younger generation of scientists.

Theses are accepted into the series by invited nomination only

and must fulfill all of the following criteria
• They must be written in good English.
• The topic should fall within the confines of Chemistry, Physics, Earth Sciences,
Engineering and related interdisciplinary fields such as Materials, Nanoscience,
Chemical Engineering, Complex Systems and Biophysics.
• The work reported in the thesis must represent a significant scientific advance.
• If the thesis includes previously published material, permission to reproduce this
must be gained from the respective copyright holder.
• They must have been examined and passed during the 12 months prior to
nomination.
• Each thesis should include a foreword by the supervisor outlining the signifi-
cance of its content.
• The theses should have a clearly defined structure including an introduction
accessible to scientists not expert in that particular field.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8790

Francesco Fanelli

Development and Testing

of Navigation Algorithms
for Autonomous Underwater
Vehicles
Doctoral Thesis accepted by
University of Florence, Italy

123
Author Supervisor
Dr. Francesco Fanelli Prof. Benedetto Allotta
Department of Industrial Engineering Department of Industrial Engineering
University of Florence University of Florence
Florence, Italy Florence, Italy

ISSN 2190-5053 ISSN 2190-5061 (electronic)

Springer Theses
ISBN 978-3-030-15595-7 ISBN 978-3-030-15596-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15596-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935544

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my family
Supervisor’s Foreword

With an ever increasing interest for what lies below the ocean’s surface, the use of
autonomous underwater robots is rapidly becoming a common practice, both within
industry and academia. Nonetheless, the demanding accuracy requirements needed
to successfully complete autonomous tasks in such a hostile environment call for
precise and reliable navigation systems. Addressing the abovementioned issues, this
thesis focuses on the study of self-localization techniques for underwater robots. In
particular, exploiting only sensors which are commonly mounted on board
underwater vehicles (thus not requiring external instrumentation, which comes with
relevant cost and deployment time), attitude and position estimation algorithms are
derived. The theoretical argumentation, illustrated with clarity and scientific rigor,
is paired with a considerable share of validation results composed of simulation
results exploiting real navigation data, or field validation tests aimed at assessing
the effectiveness of the developed solutions in a real-world scenario. Indeed, field
testing constitutes a relevant share of the research activity described in this thesis,
giving value and significance to the whole work: the developed navigation algo-
rithms, successfully validated, pave the way for additional research activity, and
practical field application in a wide variety of sectors.

Florence, Italy Prof. Benedetto Allotta

October 2018

vii
Parts of this thesis have been published in the following documents:

Journals
Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Meli E., Ridolfi A., Caiti A., Allotta B., UKF-Based
Navigation System for AUVs: Online Experimental Validation, IEEE Journal of
Oceanic Engineering, Vol. PP, Issue 99, pp. 1–9 (2018).
Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Monni N., Ridolfi A., Allotta B., An Attitude Estimation
Algorithm for Mobile Robots Under Unknown Magnetic Disturbances,
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, Vol. 21, pp 1900–1911, Apr. (2016).
Allotta B., Caiti A., Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Fenucci D., Meli E., Ridolfi A., A new
AUV navigation system exploiting unscented Kalman filter, Journal of Ocean
Engineering, Vol. 113, pp. 121–132 (2016).
Allotta B., Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Monni N., Ridolfi A., Single axis FOG aided
attitude estimation algorithm for mobile robots, Journal of Mechatronics, Vol. 30,
pp. 158–173 (2015).

International Conferences
Allotta B., Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Monni N., Paolucci L., Ridolfi A., Sea currents
estimation during AUV navigation using Unscented Kalman Filter, Proceedings of the
20th IFAC World Congress, Toulouse (FR), pp. 13668–13673, July 9–14 (2017).
Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Ridolfi A., Allotta B., Simultaneous navigation state and sea
current estimation through augmented state Unscented Kalman Filter, Proceedings
of the MTS/IEEE OCEANS’16 Monterey, Monterey (CA, US), Sept. 19–22 (2016).
Allotta B., Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Monni N., Ridolfi A., Underwater Vehicles
Attitude Estimation in presence of Magnetic Disturbances, Proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Stockholm (SE), pp. 2612–
2617, May 16–21 (2016).
Allotta B., Caiti A., Costanzi R., Fanelli F., Fenucci D., Meli E., Ridolfi A.,
Unscented Kalman Filtering for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Proceedings of
ECCOMAS MARINE 2015, Rome, June 15–17 (2015).
Allotta B., Caiti A., Chisci L., Costanzi R., Di Corato F., Fanelli F., Fantacci C.,
Fenucci D., Meli E., Ridolfi A., A comparison between EKF-based and UKF-based
navigation algorithms for AUVs localization, Proceedings of the MTS/IEEE
OCEANS’15 Genova, Genova (IT), May 18–21 (2015).

Book Chapters

Caiti A., Costanzi R., Fenucci D., Allotta B., Fanelli F., Monni N., Ridolfi A.,
Marine Robots in Environmental Surveys: Current Developments at ISME—
Localisation and Navigation, Marine Robotics and Applications, pp. 69–86 (2018).

ix
Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Benedetto Allotta,
whose knowledge and commitment allowed me to work in the field of robotics for 3
years, making a longlasting wish come true. These very few lines will never be
enough to express my gratitude.
Special thanks go to my colleagues and friends, past and present, of the
Mechatronics and Dynamic Modeling Laboratory of the Department of Industrial
Engineering of the University of Florence. I have spent only little time with some
of them, while others have mentored me throughout this whole journey; in both
cases, the distinction between colleague and friend soon ceased to exist, as we
shared experiences ranging from the frustration of failed attempts to the excitement
of witnessing that something you spent much time and effort into works as planned.
For their loyalty, I am grateful to my lifetime friends; times may change, but the
trust I have in them will always be the same.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for supporting and loving me during the
highs and lows of these years.
To all the people mentioned here goes my sincere gratitude, for they have
contributed to shape the person I am and the one that I want to be.

Francesco Fanelli

xi
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Overall Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 State of the Art of Underwater Navigation Techniques . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Contribution and Thesis Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Involved Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Typhoon Class AUVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 MARTA AUV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 FeelHippo AUV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 Mathematical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1 AUV Kinematic and Dynamic Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.1 AUV Dynamic Model in the Presence of Sea Currents . . . 29
3.2 Unscented Kalman Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2.1 Unscented Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2.2 Unscented Kalman Filter Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3 Sensors Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4 Navigation Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.1 Attitude Estimation Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.1.1 Magnetometer Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.1.2 Attitude Estimator Design Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2 Position Estimation Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.1 AUV State-Space Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2.2 Sea Current Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

xiii
xiv Contents

5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1 Attitude Estimator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.2 Position Estimator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.3 Sea Current Estimator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Appendix: Author’s Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Nomenclature

Measurement units for non-uniform quantities are not reported. A 1 in the units
field denotes a unitless quantity.

Af ;i Projection of the area of the hull on a plane perpendicular to the

i-axis (m2 )
Cð”Þ Centripetal and Coriolis effects matrix
CA ð”Þ Added centripetal and Coriolis effects matrix
CD; i i-axis drag coefficient (1)
CRB ð”Þ Rigid body centripetal and Coriolis effects matrix
Dð”Þ Hydrodynamic damping effects matrix
K Body-fixed x-axis torque (Nm)
M Body-fixed y-axis torque (Nm)
MA Added mass matrix
MRB Rigid body mass and inertia matrix
Mm Mass and inertia matrix
N Body-fixed z-axis torque (Nm)
P State covariance
Q Process noise covariance
R Measurement noise covariance
RNB ð·2 Þ Earth-fixed frame to body-fixed frame rotation matrix (1)
RNU Earth-fixed frame to USBL-fixed frame rotation matrix (1)
TBN ð·2 Þ Angular velocity to ·2 time derivative transformation matrix (1)
V Volume (m3 )
W Magnetometer Soft Iron, Scale Factor, and Misalignment effect
(1)
X Body-fixed x-axis force (N)
Y Body-fixed y-axis force (N)
Z Body-fixed z-axis force (N)
dNP Earth-fixed frame GPS measurement noise (m)
dNU Earth-fixed frame USBL measurement noise (m)

xv
xvi Nomenclature

da IMU acceleration measurement noise (m/s2 )

dg IMU angular velocity measurement noise (rad/s)
dm Compass magnetic field measurement noise (AU)
dv DVL measurement noise (m/s)
· Earth-fixed pose
·1 Earth-fixed position (m)
·2 Earth-fixed orientation (rad)
” Body-fixed velocity
”1 Body-fixed linear velocity (m/s)
”2 Body-fixed angular velocity (rad/s)
” Nc; h North and East current components (m/s)
”c Body-fixed current velocity
” Nc Earth-fixed current velocity
”r Relative velocity
!BIMU IMU gyroscope bias (rad/s)
!c Correction term of the attitude estimation filter (rad/s)
¿ Body-fixed vector of forces and torques
¿1 Body-fixed force (N)
¿2 Body-fixed torque (Nm)
dd Depth sensor measurement noise (m)
df FOG measurement noise (rad/s)
fO B x B y B z B g Body-fixed reference frame
fO N x N y N z N g Earth-fixed reference frame
!cFOG FOG measured angular rate after compensation of Earth’s
angular rate effect (rad/s)
!mFOG FOG measured angular rate (rad/s)
!r ; !m ; Xc Weights of the Unscented Transform (1)
/ Roll angle (rad)
ˆ Yaw angle (rad)
q Water density (kg/m3 )
BB Body frame buoyancy (N)
HN;B
?
Body frame estimate of Earth’s magnetic field projected on the
plane orthogonal to acceleration (T)
HN Earth’s magnetic field (T)
Hd Magnetometer Hard Iron effect (AU)
PGPS GPS fix
PNGPS Earth-fixed frame GPS measured position (m)
PNUSBL Earth-fixed frame USBL measured position (m)
PNU Earth-fixed frame USBL position (m)
WB Body frame gravitational force (N)
aBIMU IMU measured acceleration (m/s2 )
af Filtered accelerometer measurements (m/s2 )
bg IMU measured angular velocity (rad/s)
Nomenclature xvii

g Gravitational acceleration (m/s2 )

g· ð·Þ Gravitational and buoyancy effects vector
mB Compass measured magnetic field (AU)
mc Calibrated magnetic field measurements (T)
mc? Projection of calibrated magnetic field measurements on the
plane orthogonal to acceleration (T)
rBb Body frame position of the center of buoyancy (m)
u Control input vector
v Measurement noise
vBDVL DVL measured velocity (m/s)
w Process noise
x State vector
y Measurement vector
h Pitch angle (rad)
N Depth sensor measured depth (m)
dDS

diag Ix ; Iy ; Iz Principal inertia matrix (kgm2 )
m Mass (kg)
p Body-fixed x-axis angular velocity (rad/s)
q Body-fixed y-axis angular velocity (rad/s)
r Body-fixed z-axis angular velocity (rad/s)
rH;h Magnitude of the horizontal projection of the magnetic field (T)
t Time (s)
u Body-fixed x-axis linear velocity (surge motion) (m/s)
v Body-fixed y-axis linear velocity (sway motion) (m/s)
w Body-fixed z-axis linear velocity (heave motion) (m/s)
x Earth-fixed x-axis position (m)
y Earth-fixed y-axis position (m)
z Earth-fixed z-axis position (m)
Acronyms

ADCP Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler

AHRS Attitude and Heading Reference System
AUV Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
DS Depth Sensor
DVL Doppler Velocity Log
EKF Extended Kalman Filter
FOG Fiber Optic Gyroscope
GNC Guidance, Navigation, and Control
GPS Global Positioning System
IMU Inertial Measurement Unit
INS Inertial Navigation System
KF Kalman Filter
LBL Long BaseLine
MEMS Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems
MMSE Minimum Mean Square Error
NECF Nonlinear Explicit Complementary Filter
NED North, East, and Down
ROV Remotely Operated Vehicle
RV Random Variable
SNAME Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
UKF Unscented Kalman Filter
USBL Ultra Short BaseLine
UT Unscented Transform
UUV Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

xix
Chapter 1
Introduction

Over the past few decades, the field of marine engineering witnessed a significant
growth. The exploration of what lies below the surface and the exploitation of the
resources available in the ocean depths attracted (and continue to attract) scientists
and businessmen in equal measure. Regardless of the specific background, people
involved in underwater operations often resort to the aid of robots, since the environ-
ment they work in is essentially hostile to humans. Wave disturbances, sea currents,
high pressure, scarce visibility (due to suspended particles or to insufficient light
penetration) are only some of the disruptions that operators must face during at-sea
activities.
To increase the success chance of undersea tasks, many different underwater
robots have been developed throughout the years, both manned and unmanned.
Among Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUVs), a first classification can be made
according to operational mode: teleoperated vehicles, referred to as Remotely Oper-
ated Vehicle (ROVs), are constantly connected by a cable to both their power sup-
ply and to a control station, where a specifically trained operator exploits feedback
acquired by onboard sensors (and transmitted through the connection cable) to guide
the vehicle; alternatively, as with many modern ROVs, the cable is used for data
exchange only while the necessary power is stored on board using batteries. On the
other side, the majority of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUVs) are completely
autonomous (actually, a few examples of acoustically controlled AUVs exist): such
vehicles do not require human intervention (except for deployment and recovery),
are usually equipped with electric batteries and possess dedicated systems used to
control their motion.
Historically, the first AUVs were employed in the military field; nowadays, such
vehicles can be considered a cost-affordable solution for many applications in the
most diverse sectors. Just to name a few examples: they are employed in the Oil & Gas
sector to carry out high-depth tasks in environments which are unsuitable for divers;
they find application in the field of underwater geology, biology, and archeology,
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1
F. Fanelli, Development and Testing of Navigation Algorithms
for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15596-4_1
2 1 Introduction

where the payload they are often equipped with is used for data collection and
detection and monitoring activities of targets of interests on the seabed; they are
even employed for search and rescue tasks. Indeed, there are numerous companies
commercializing autonomous vehicles, while scientists and researchers develop their
own prototypes or employ commercial products to test novel algorithms.
To satisfy the demanding accuracy requisites needed to successfully complete
the above-mentioned tasks (or, generally speaking, all kinds of missions AUVs are
commonly employed for), autonomous vehicles require the availability of precise
and reliable navigation and self-localization systems. Indeed, underwater localization
and autonomous navigation have been considered challenging research topics by the
scientific community for many years, and they continue to draw scientists’ attention.
Many navigation strategies and different algorithms have been developed over the
years, trying to establish efficient strategies to cope with the difficulties posed by
the marine environment; the research activity carried out during the Ph.D. period
headed in that direction, aiming at improving existing pose estimation algorithms or
at validating new solutions suitable for the underwater field.
The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows: Sect. 1.1 describes the
framework in which the research activity took place, while a review of significant
contributions on the topic of underwater navigation and localization, which also
serves as a motivation for the algorithms developed during the Ph.D. period, is
reported in Sect. 1.2. Finally, Sect. 1.3 states the main contribution of the research
and illustrates the structure of the thesis.

1.1 Overall Framework

The research activity was conducted at the Mechatronics and Dynamic Modeling
Laboratory (MDM Lab) of the Department of Industrial Engineering of the Univer-
sity of Florence (DIEF). The MDM Lab has been active in the field of underwater
robotics since 2011, thanks to the participation in the Tuscany region project Tec-
nicHe per l’Esplorazione Sottomarina Archeologica mediante l’Utilizzo di Robot
aUtonomi in Sciami (THESAURUS) [42], coordinated by the Research Center
“E. Piaggio” of the University of Pisa. One of the goals of the THESAURUS project
was the creation of a swarm of AUVs to perform cooperative autonomous surveys of
areas of archaeological importance in the Tuscan Archipelago. In addition to being
equipped with acoustical and optical payload used to identify and geolocalize poten-
tial objects of interest lying on the sea floor, the AUVs of the swarm would be able to
communicate acoustically, both among themselves and with additional fixed stations,
in order to create an underwater network to be used to plan, execute, and monitor
cooperative underwater operations. For the project, the University of Florence devel-
oped and built the Typhoon class AUVs (presented in details, together with the other
AUVs of the MDM Lab, in a dedicated chapter of this thesis), middle-sized AUVs
able to fulfill the requirements of the project thanks to their dedicated Guidance,
Navigation, and Control (GNC) system and their ability to equip diverse payload.
1.1 Overall Framework 3

Before the end of the THESAURUS project, successfully concluded in 2013, the
MDM Lab assumed the role of coordinating partner of the European FP7 project
ARcheological RObot systems for the World’s Seas (ARROWS) [37]. Gathering
partners from all over Europe, the goal of the ARROWS project was the creation of
underwater vehicles with the aim of reducing the costs of undersea archaeological
operations. The needs of underwater archaeologists, identified during the project, led
to the development of robotic tools able to adapt in response to the mutating necessi-
ties of an archaeological campaign, so that they could be efficiently used throughout
all its phases. During the project, the MDM Lab developed the modular AUV MArine
Robotic Tool for Archaeology (MARTA): indeed, thanks to the ability to modify its
physical structure (by rearranging or even removing some of its modules), MARTA
can be successfully employed in a wide variety of operations. In addition, since the
connections at the ends of each module are standardized, new modules with different
capabilities can be suitably developed and easily added to the body of the AUV.
Since 2014, the University of Florence has been part of the Interuniversity Cen-
ter of Integrated Systems for the Marine Environment (ISME) [35], which gathers
research institutions from all over Italy and serves as a common basis for joint oper-
ations in the marine field. In particular, several test campaigns were carried out in the
Ligurian Sea under the banner of ISME, thanks to the logistic support of the Naval
Experimentation and Support Center (Centro di Supporto e Sperimentazione Navale
(CSSN)) of the Italian Navy; the performed tests allowed to assess the performance
of the vehicles of the MDM Lab, and helped identify potential areas of improvement.
In 2016, the University of Florence led the Bridging Robots for Underwater Com-
munication Enrichment (BRUCE) project, subproject of the European FP7 SUNRISE
project [41]. During BRUCE, the possibility of using underwater vehicles as mobile
nodes within an acoustic network composed of heterogeneous nodes was inves-
tigated. In particular, MARTA AUV, equipped with two acoustic communication
devices produced by different manufacturers, successfully acted as an “interpreter”
allowing for data exchange between two other nodes of the network which would
not be able to communicate otherwise (since they were lacking a common commu-
nication protocol).
At the time of writing, the MDM Lab is working on the Autonomous underwater
Robotic and sensing systems for Cultural HEritage discovery cOnServation and in
sitU valorization (ARCHEOSUb) project [36]. Based on the knowledge of the marine
environment and on the AUV development skills acquired during previous projects,
the University of Florence is actively participating in the creation of a new low-cost
autonomous vehicle which will be used to survey and monitor underwater sites of
archaeological interest.
Throughout the years, in addition to the participation in national and European
research projects, the University of Florence took part in several student and non-
student robotics competitions. These events, in addition to constituting a valuable
opportunity to test underwater vehicles outside of the pressing deadlines of research
projects, foster the exchange of knowledge between students and researchers and
enhance the inventiveness and the adaptability of the participants, which usually
face mutating scenarios requiring the development of new solutions while deal-
4 1 Introduction

ing with strict time and resources constraints. A team from the University of Flo-
rence took part in the Student Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Challenge-Europe
(SAUC-E) [40] competition in 2012, 2013, and 2016, while in 2015 the team par-
ticipated in euRathlon [38]; finally, it took part in the European Robotics League
(ERL) Emergency Robots competition in September 2017 [39]. The SAUC-E com-
petition consists in a series of underwater trials rewarding autonomy and innovative
approaches; euRathlon and ERL further increase the challenge, recreating the after-
math of a catastrophe in order to evaluate how air, land, and sea robots perform in
different tasks (either single- or multi-domain cooperative missions) in a scenario
which forbids human intervention. In 2013 and 2016, the team from the University
of Florence placed third in the SAUC-E competition, while in 2017 it placed second
in the ERL Emergency Robots air-and-sea sub-challenge, and fourth in the grand
challenge (comprising all the domains).

1.2 State of the Art of Underwater Navigation Techniques

Despite the growing interest that ocean engineering has received in recent years,
autonomous underwater navigation can still be considered a challenging task. The
high level of performance required, which is further enhanced if multiple vehicles
are simultaneously employed, and the limitations due to the physics of the marine
environment, e.g. the fact that the Global Positioning System (GPS), which is widely
used for localization by land and air robots, cannot be exploited underwater, lead to
a redefinition of what can be considered as the minimum accuracy standard. As a
consequence, the choice of the best navigation system for a specific application is
sometimes influenced more by the raw quality of the employed sensors than by the
preference for one estimation algorithm over another.
As of today, one of the main challenges that needs to be tackled is the precise
localization of underwater vehicles. If attitude information is available, the simplest
strategy to estimate AUV position is to integrate velocity measurements over time
starting from a known position (a technique known as dead reckoning). However,
due to the presence of noise and bias on the employed measurements, dead reckoning
strategies are likely to be subjected to an unavoidable drift of the estimation error over
time, which becomes particularly significant for long navigation missions. To avoid
the necessity of dedicated error reset procedures (such as periodic resurfacings),
which would be time- and power-consuming, it is not uncommon for AUVs to make
use of additional, more elaborate estimators. The choice of a suitable algorithm or a
fine tuning of the parameters it depends on are likely to increase the overall naviga-
tion performance of a vehicle, helping reduce the gap compared to top-of-the-range
sensors; such feature is particularly desirable in the case of small AUVs or, gener-
ally speaking, low-cost applications. Hence, many different navigation algorithms
have been developed throughout the years, and many sources can be found within
scientific literature. A first major distinction can be made based on how attitude is
estimated: indeed, the problems of estimating the position and the orientation of a
1.2 State of the Art of Underwater Navigation Techniques 5

mobile robot can be tackled together, leading to a complete pose estimation algo-
rithm, or separately; in the second case, attitude is often used as input to the position
estimation filter. Both options are valid, and have been extensively investigated by
the scientific community.
A widely used approach for both position and attitude estimation consists in the
use of a Kalman Filter (KF) [29], a recursive estimator which exploits a mathemat-
ical model of the physical system under study and measurements of the quantities
output by such system to compute an accurate estimate of its internal state. Since
the standard KF cannot be used in the case of nonlinear models, several KF-based
algorithms have been developed to deal with such situations, being the Extended
Kalman Filter (EKF) and the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) the most common
[11, 27, 28, 54]. In particular, since the mathematical models used to describe the
physical behavior of AUVs are usually nonlinear (more on that in subsequent chap-
ters of this thesis), KF extensions are employed most of the time. Indeed, thanks
to its straightforward implementation, the EKF is widely employed, and numerous
literature sources regarding its use in the marine field (and not limited to AUVs) are
available (see for instance [1, 2, 17, 18, 32, 44, 51] for examples of the employment
of the EKF for different marine-related applications); in addition, especially when
paired with a simple vehicle model (often limited to a purely kinematic description
of motion), it offers a fast and light (in terms of required computational resources)
navigation solution. An alternative to the EKF may be constituted by UKF-based
navigation algorithms. Since the EKF revolves around the linearization of nonlinear
model equations (i.e. the computation of derivatives with respect to the variables
of interest), it is likely to give rise to several difficulties if applied to highly non-
linear or non-differentiable models; the UKF, on the other side, being completely
derivative-free, is not affected by such limitations and may be even used with more
elaborate vehicle models, able to better capture the underlying physical phenomena
with respect to, e.g., a simplified kinematic model.
Several contributions regarding the application of the UKF in the marine field can
be found in literature. For instance, in [10, 23], the authors simulate the behavior
of different AUVs during the execution of autonomous underwater tasks, with the
control loops of such vehicles closing on UKF-based navigation filters; in [46], a
simulated comparison between the EKF and the UKF is proposed, where the fil-
ters are exploited to estimate the unknown hydrodynamic coefficients used to model
the interaction of an AUV with water. Simulation results show that the UKF may
offer satisfying performance, even outperforming the EKF; in [7], instead, the suit-
ability of the UKF for underwater terrain-based navigation (i.e. navigation with the
aid of a known map; in the cited contribution, the availability of bathymetric data
is assumed) is evaluated using experimental data. Nonetheless, despite the encour-
aging results documented in literature, UKF-based approaches have not yet been
extensively exploited in the underwater field, falling behind the EKF in terms of
usage.
To ease the localization problem, local sensor networks (both static and dynamic)
composed of one or more localizing acoustic devices can be suitably exploited [57,
59]. For instance, recent studies investigated the possibility to employ measurements
6 1 Introduction

of the distance between a vehicle and a single acoustic beacon to increase the accuracy
of the estimated position of the former; such information is acquired by the vehicle
during navigation and fused with onboard sensors data. This approach, commonly
referred to as single beacon localization, has indeed received increasing recognition
over the years (see e.g. [8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19, 26, 30, 52, 55, 56] and references
contained therein).
Concerning attitude estimation, many high-precision navigation systems currently
rely on high-grade optical gyrocompasses; nonetheless, many different estimation
algorithms (suitable for use in low-cost applications) have been developed over the
years. In addition to KF-based solutions, other commonly adopted strategies involve
nonlinear observers and complementary filters (the latter indicating algorithms which
fuse measurements possessing complementary spectral characteristics). For instance,
starting from the work presented in [47], in [34, 53] the authors propose a quaternion-
based nonlinear attitude observer where angular rate measurements are integrated to
obtain an attitude estimate, and the results is then corrected by comparison with an
orientation approximation computed directly from linear acceleration and magnetic
field measurements. In [24, 31], the authors propose an observer which does not
require a separate attitude computation to be used as correction term, relying on
direct measurements of fixed reference vectors instead; the need for fixed vectors
has then been removed in [22]. Indeed, the estimator proposed in [31] represents a
major contribution on the subject of attitude estimation, and has become a standard
reference in the field.
As with position estimators, the availability of acoustic localizing devices consti-
tutes an useful mean to increase the accuracy of attitude estimates. For instance, in
[50] the authors employ distance measurements from a vehicle to two or more acous-
tic devices to replace magnetic field measurements in the case of navigation close to
magnetic disturbances, while in [21] it is shown how both the inputs and the outputs
of a nonlinear attitude observer can be used in conjunction with an external position
reference system to provide a complete position, velocity, and attitude estimator.
Closely related to underwater navigation (and tackled during the Ph.D. period)
is the problem of sea current estimation. Several examples regarding the use of
underwater vehicles for current estimation can be found in literature: for instance, in
[45] the authors report results of experimental tests where vehicle-mounted current
measurement sensors (such as Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCPs)) are used
to evaluate current velocity fields in coastal environments; in [58], instead, it is
shown how ADCPs and a dynamic model of an autonomous vehicle can be suitably
employed to estimate the velocity of deep-sea hydrothermal plumes. Additionally,
the knowledge of the intensity and the direction of currents acting on an underwater
vehicle can be actively exploited to increase the performance of the navigation system
of the latter, even becoming of critical importance in some scenarios: for example, in
[33, 48, 49, 60] current measurements, dead reckoning, and KF-based estimators are
used for navigation when velocity measurements with respect to the water column
below the vehicle are the only available velocity measurements (i.e. when velocity
with respect to the bottom cannot be estimated).
1.2 State of the Art of Underwater Navigation Techniques 7

A different approach (similarly to what will be presented in this thesis) consists

in estimating sea current without resorting to its direct measurement, avoiding the
necessity of dedicated instrumentation: for instance, in [25] vehicle velocity mea-
surements (with respect to the sea bottom) are paired with a kinematic vehicle model
and used as input for a KF, while in [43] range measurements from acoustic beacons
are used in conjunction with an EKF to estimate horizontal current intensity.

1.3 Contribution and Thesis Structure

The research activity carried out during the Ph.D. period focused on the development
of pose estimation algorithms for mobile robots, with special regard to AUVs. Start-
ing from existing scientific literature, state-of-the-art navigation solutions (and their
limitations) were analyzed, in order to identify those issues that could open up for
improvements or novel strategies. In particular, the proposed contributions rely only
on sensors which can be housed on board a vehicle; while external equipment (e.g.
acoustic devices) constitutes an undeniable navigation help, it automatically implies
an increase of the overall cost of at-sea operations, since such instrumentation is often
expensive and may require time and dedicated logistics to be efficiently deployed.
During the initial phase of the research, a complete pose estimation algorithm
based on the UKF was developed, and its performance was compared with that of an
EKF-based filter. This first comparison, executed offline exploiting navigation data
acquired during previous experimental campaigns, was performed in order to evaluate
the suitability of the developed filter for estimation of AUVs motion. Following the
encouraging results obtained during this phase [3, 4], the research activity continued
in parallel on the topics of attitude and position estimation.
On the one hand, the goal was to derive an attitude estimator with reduced sen-
sitivity with respect to magnetic disturbances, which constitute a major source of
orientation estimation error, maintaining at the same time the overall (monetary)
cost limited; on the other hand, in light of the contributions identified within the
state of the art and supported by the results of the above-mentioned preliminary
tests, the primary objective was to assess the real performance of an UKF-based
position estimator in a real scenario, to investigate its applicability and reliability
when used with underwater vehicles. Both issues were satisfyingly addressed dur-
ing the Ph.D. period: starting from [31], a nonlinear attitude observer, robust with
respect to magnetic disturbances and suitable for use in the underwater field, was
developed and successfully tested online [6, 14], and it is now used on the vehicles
of the MDM Lab. The derived algorithm is able to cope with the performance lim-
itations that accompany the use of compasses in the case of magnetically perturbed
environments, without requiring the use of top-of-the-range sensors. Concerning the
UKF-based estimator, the presence of the standalone attitude observer allowed to
simplify the structure of the filter; for instance, attitude was removed from the set
of variables that need to be estimated, constituting a time-varying input instead. The
8 1 Introduction

focus was then given to the online validation of the derived solution, carried out
during suitable experimental campaigns (whose results are presented in this work).
In addition, the possibility of estimating sea current within the developed nav-
igation filter was investigated. The designed strategy falls in the category of those
current estimators which do not make use of external instrumentation: indeed, the
vehicle model employed within the UKF-based position estimator was revised in
order to include the effect of sea current on vehicle dynamics, while the same sen-
sor data used for position estimation were taken into account. The main objective
was to evaluate if current estimation could be included within the already developed
navigation filter, without the need of (expensive) additional equipment or without
incurring in an unacceptable computational load increase with respect to position
estimation only. The feasibility of the devised approach was at first verified thanks
to an observability analysis (presented in subsequent chapters of this thesis); then,
exploiting real navigation data, simulations were carried out to establish the good-
ness of the developed solution [5, 15]; in view of the promising results, future sea
tests will be performed in order to fully validate the developed strategy.
The remainder of the thesis is organized as follows: Chap. 2 describes the AUVs
of the MDM Lab in details, while Chap. 3 reviews the mathematical background
required to introduce the navigation algorithms developed during the Ph.D. period,
which constitute the subject of Chap. 4. Chapter 5 presents the results of tests aiming
at validating the above-mentioned algorithms, and Chap. 6 concludes the work.

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Chapter 2
Involved Vehicles

This chapter is dedicated to the AUVs of the MDM Lab. At the time of writing, the
MDM Lab owns four vehicles, while a fifth is currently under development and will be
ready for sea trials by mid 2018. Despite them being developed for specific purposes,
e.g. research projects whose goal was to ease operations of underwater archaeologists
(Typhoon AUVs and MARTA AUV, Sects. 2.1 and 2.2) or even student robotics
competitions (FeelHippo AUV, introduced in Sect. 2.3), they now constitute a fleet
capable of completing different underwater tasks. Indeed, for a particular mission,
be it a long range navigation task or an inspection of confined underwater spaces, the
most suitable vehicle or even the best configuration in the case of modular vehicles
such as MARTA (this feature will be detailed in Sect. 2.2) can be chosen. In addition,
such choice can be based only on the characteristics of the vehicles, since the mission
planning, control, and monitoring interface is the same for all of them.
During the Ph.D. period, all the available vehicles (as the results of Chap. 5 will
show) have been employed to validate and evaluate the performance of the developed
navigation algorithms; this chapter describes each of them in details, to get a grasp
of their different characteristics and of their role within the MDM Lab fleet. The
description covers the materials used and the construction, as well as payload and
navigation sensors. For what concerns the last category, a detailed discussion about
the sensors which are usually mounted on underwater vehicles and the quantities
they are able to output is given in Chap. 3; hence, in this chapter they are only
briefly introduced. In particular, all the AUVs of the MDM Lab are equipped with
the following navigation sensors (or a subset of them):
• GPS, used to measure position and to initialize the navigation filter of the vehicles
while they are on surface;
• Depth Sensor (DS);
• Doppler Velocity Log (DVL), used to measure linear velocity;

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 13

F. Fanelli, Development and Testing of Navigation Algorithms
for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Springer Theses,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15596-4_2
14 2 Involved Vehicles

• Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and triaxial compass, used to measure the ori-
entation of the vehicles;
• single-axis Fiber Optic Gyroscope (FOG), used to improve the accuracy of the
orientation estimate;
• acoustic localization systems, used to measure the position of the vehicles while
the latter navigate underwater.

2.1 Typhoon Class AUVs

Typhoon class AUVs (Figs. 2.1 and 2.2) are middle-sized AUVs developed by the
MDM Lab in the framework of the THESAURUS project. The main physical char-
acteristics of the vehicle, together with the achievable performance, are reported in
Table 2.1.
The custom-made external hull is made of fiberglass; a central battery pack is
used to power the motors and all the electronic devices present on board and housed
within the hull, which are in turn controlled by two different computers (an industrial
PC104 and an Intel i-7 board). The high level GNC system is based on the Robot
Operating System (ROS), which also serves as an interface between the processing
units and onboard instrumentation (the same applies to all the AUVs of the MDM
Lab).
The positioning of the thrusters on the vehicle is shown in the design of Fig.
2.3; six oil-filled thrusters with fixed pitch, custom-made (obtained through addi-
tive manufacturing) propellers (two rear, two lateral and two vertical) are used to
actively control translational motion and yaw and pitch angles, while roll stability
is guaranteed by hydrostatics (i.e. the correct positioning of gravity and buoyancy
centers ensures limited roll motion). At the time of writing, the MDM Lab owns two

Fig. 2.1 Typhoon class AUV at sea

2.1 Typhoon Class AUVs 15

Fig. 2.2 Typhoon class AUV hovering underwater

Table 2.1 Typhoon class AUV physical data and performance

Typhoon class AUV characteristics
Length [mm] 3600
External diameter [mm] 350
Mass [kg] 130–180 (dep. on payload)
Max speed [kn] 5–6
Max depth [m] 300
Autonomy [h] >8

fully working Typhoon class prototypes; these vehicles, named TifOne and TifTu
respectively, possess distinct navigation sensors and payload. In particular, Table 2.2
reports the navigation sensors mounted on each AUV. In addition to the acoustic
systems reported in Table 2.2, both vehicles are able to communicate using WiFi or
radio waves (while on surface). Furthermore, Typhoon AUVs can be equipped with
different types of payloads, either optical or acoustical (for example, Fig. 2.2 shows
TifOne AUV equipped with a pair of bottom-looking cameras and a side scan sonar,
visible near the stern of the vehicle).
Thanks to their physical structure, autonomy, and equipped navigation sensors,
the Typhoon AUVs can be used to perform a variety of autonomous missions at sea
(even in cooperation, given the presence of dedicated acoustic communication and
localization systems mounted directly on board), ranging from medium-range navi-
gation tasks (even in the presence of moderate sea currents) to survey and inspection
of smaller areas, where their hovering capability (granted by the positioning of the
thrusters) and the availability of diverse payload may be exploited to ease the work
of divers or even substitute them during the execution of different tasks, with special
focus on underwater archeology-related operations.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 LAWSUIT OR LEGACY
Many of the worst features in Life assurance contracts or
policies, mentioned in this essay, have been amended or
corrected since its publication, but there remain enough
other conditions of doubtful fairness to the policy holder
to, I think, justify including this essay in this book.

Among these conditions, is the clause, in all Tontine

policies,—and nearly all policies now issued are Tontine in
one form or another,—which puts all accumulations on
policies derived from "dividends," premiums, etc., on lapsed
policies etc., into the hands of directors or officers of
the companies, to do with as they choose, the policy holder
being made, by the terms of his contract or policy, to agree
to accept whatever proportion of surplus there may be
"apportioned by the Society" or Company, to his policy, when
it shall have matured. That is, the policy holder is not
represented as against the Company, in the determining of
what, if any surplus, his policy is or should be entitled
to. "At the end of the Tontine Period, if the person proposed
for assurance be then living, and the policy in force, the
policy shall participate in the accumulated surplus, derived
from policies on the Free Tontine plan, both existing and
discontinued, as may then be apportioned by the Society."
(Italics mine.) This leaves the policy holder absolutely at
the mercy of the Company, or its actuary who is, or may be,
the instrument of the officers of the Company. And it will
not do to reply that "the policy holders are the Company"
for it is well known, at least among insurance experts, that
this is one of the fictions of the business in its practical
management.

In illustration of certain other abuses in the management of

this beneficent and important business, I have also
included, brief, humorous sketch, which touches some of
these, a propoi of the fictions versus the facts.

Within the past twenty years the business of life-insurance has

grown with such wonderful rapidity, and changed so radically in its
methods and contracts, that it is to-day as unlike its old self as the
railway-car is unlike the stage-coach.
The old life-insurance contract undertook to define burglary, riot,
and rebellion, and the companies held themselves free from
obligations which they had deliberately assumed, if the other party
to the contract did not conform to the rules of conduct laid down
under their definition and requirements. Nowhere else in the history
of large business organizations has the debtor regulated his
obligation by the morals of his creditor and liquidated his debt by
acknowledging its existence, and then simply charging moral
obliquity on the part of said creditor as the reason for not paying it.
If A owes B fifty dollars, and B is known to be a thief or a
murderer, it does not liquidate A's debt to simply show that fact. But
life-insurance companies have held, and some of them still claim, the
right to so indemnify creditors, and, strange to say, they have been
able to conduct business on that basis. They have even gone further,
and said that a debt to B's heirs is forfeited in like manner—thus
making the destruction of a man's reputation after his death of
pecuniary advantage to the company. They have been enabled to do
this because many men do not read the insurance contract which
they sign, and hence have no idea of its complicated and, in many
cases, unfair nature. If men insisted upon understanding the
contract before they sign it, as they do in other business, the more
unfair features would necessarily disappear from all insurance
contracts.
If I deposit a thousand dollars in a bank, it is my money—I can
withdraw it when I please, subject, of course, to business rules,
which have nothing to do with my standing as a citizen. The bank
has nothing to say in regard to my loyalty or my honesty in other
affairs. My money can not revert to the bank on outside ethical or
moral grounds. But in life-insurance—a business in which more
money is invested than in banking—the opposite rule has been, and
to some extent still is, in operation.
There are a few companies, it is true, which have rarely taken
advantage of their reserved right to mulct a family of money actually
received, upon the plea of outside ethical delinquencies of the dead
—which had nothing to do with his length of life—and there are
companies, at the present time, which have voluntarily eliminated
the greater part of these oppressive regulations and reserved rights
from their forms of contract. But in many of the companies they still
remain in full force, and in almost all there are improvements of a
most important nature needed even yet.
In other words, while one or two companies have made their
contracts, in large part, what contracts purport to be, a guarantee of
good faith—that, if so much money is paid to them during a stated
interval, they will return to the party insured, or to his heirs, a stated
sum at a given time—there are still many which have not so
improved their contracts, and are doing business in the old way,
depending for success on the ignorance of their applicants in regard
to the unfair conditions of the contracts which they sign. A few have
left out most of the thousand and one ifs and ands and provideds of
the old regime, and have at last undertaken to conduct this
important and rapidly-growing business on strictly business
principles, and the results have abundantly attested the wisdom of
the new departure and indicate the advisability of still more liberal
measures. A man may now, if he is careful and wise with his choice
of a company, insure his life, or, if insured, he may have the temerity
to die, without a fairly-grounded expectation of leaving his family a
lawsuit for a legacy. He may also be reasonably sure that he is not
placing his own reputation (after he is unable to defend it) at the
mercy of a powerful corporation intent upon saving its funds from
the inroads of a just debt. And I question if it is too much to say
that, given enough money, a strong motive, and a powerful
corporation, on the one hand, and only a sorrowing family upon the
other, and no man ever lived or died whose reputation could not be
blackened beyond repair, after he was himself unable to explain or
refute seeming irregularities of conduct or dishonesty of motive. No
man's character is invulnerable, and no man's reputation can afford
the strain or test of such a contest. Millions of dollars have been
withheld from rightful heirs by threats of an exposure—the more
vague the more frightful—of the unsuspected crimes or misdeeds of
the beloved dead.
Thousands of cases never known to the public have been
"compromised," and hundreds of heartaches and unjust suspicions
and fears about the dead, which can never be corrected, are
aroused in sorrowing but loving breasts by this method of doing
"business." It is, of course, of the utmost importance that every
precaution be taken by life insurance companies to protect against
fraud and trickery, the funds held by them in trust for others. But
with the agent, the examining physician, the medical directors, and
the inspectors all employed by, and answerable to, the company
represented, if fraud is committed in getting into the company, one
or all of these paid officers must, almost of necessity, be party to
that fraud. With all these safeguards in the hands of the company, if
a man is accepted as a "good risk," if he pays his premiums, surely
his family has the right to expect a legacy and not a lawsuit, nor a
"compromise" which must cast reproach on the dead.
If it were not for the enormous value and benefits of this method
of making provision for his family, surely no man in his senses would
ever have risked—would not risk to-day—signing a contract which
gives the other interested party not only an absolute fixed sum of his
money, year by year, but also reserves to it the right to investigate
and construe his actions and motives after he is unable to contest its
verdict.
And not only this, but upon the finding of some slight, wholly
immaterial flaw in his statements (which it failed to find when he
was in the hands of its agents and officers), in some companies he
not only forfeits the right of his heirs to their purchased inheritance,
but the company retains his money which he has paid in besides!
This is surely a dangerous contract for any man to sign. It is placing
a temptation and a power in the hands of a corporation that it has
never yet been in the nature of corporations not to abuse.
"If any statement in this application is in any respect untrue, it
voids the policy, and all payments which shall have been made
revert to the company," gives a wide field and doubtful motive of
action when it is remembered that many of the questions are of
such a nature that not one man in a thousand could be absolutely
sure that he knew the correct reply.
"At what age did your grandparents die?" All four of them. How
many men are sure that they can answer that question correctly?
"Of what did each one die?" You do not know. You have a general
idea. You express it. You pay your premiums ten years. You die (one
doctor says of consumption—another says of blood-poison); the
company finds some old person who says your grandmother on your
father's side died of the same thing, and there is a rumor that along-
forgotten (or never known) country cousin also had it.
The company sends a representative to the widow.. He assures
her (and by the very terms of the contract, signed by the dead
husband, he is right and she is helpless) that they can refuse to pay
a cent; that her husband got his policy by fraud—although no
indication of his physical disorder appeared to any of the numerous
officers employed by the company for its own protection, when he
made his application, and by general reports he was (and believed
himself to be) a sound man.
He assures her that they want to be generous rather than just,
and if she will sign a release, or "compromise," she will be given a
small part of the sum named in the policy. He makes her feel the
necessity of keeping this bargain a secret, lest other policy holders
object to the company paying anything on the life of one who
"attempted a fraud" upon them! He impresses upon her that in case
of contest she could get absolutely nothing; that she is poor, and the
company is rich and strong; and if he fails to arouse her gratitude
for his generosity in offering to pay her anything whatever, he
usually succeeds in intimidating her in her poverty and distress. A
sparrow in the hand is worth more than an eagle on Mount
Washington to a widow with a hungry family, especially if the eagle
has successfully maimed his pursuer in the beginning of the flight.
The company knows this. The widow knows it. The conclusion is
therefore certain before the premises are stated, and the
"compromise" is made or the claim quietly dropped. It is easy to say
that a man died of some bad habit unknown to his family, and his
family would rather forego their claim than drag into light, or into
disgrace, the memory of the loved dead. All this is well understood
by those on the "inside," and by thousands of sad hearts that dare
not speak. Is there no remedy for all this? Is there no way that a
useful and powerful business can be rid of features which make it
both dangerous and ghoulish?
The recent steps taken by the best companies are undoubtedly in
the right direction, as those still using the old forms of contract will
sooner or later learn. But there is room yet for improvement even in
the best forms written to-day. The fairest insurance contract written
still has room for improvement.
Is there no way to protect these great corporations against the
frauds of individuals, and at the same time protect the individual
against the frauds of the corporations?
Must life-insurance contracts be absolutely one-sided, and that be
the side of the strong against the weak; the guarded against the
unguarded; the living against the dead? It seems to me that this is
wholly unnecessary. A life-insurance company which has the agents,
the doctors, the medical directors, and inspectors all on its side can
well afford to offer a fair field—a plain, fair contract—to its patrons
and then pay its debts like any other debtor when its obligation falls
due. If it can not find out within a year (with all the machinery in its
own hands), and while the man is alive, that he is a bad risk, it is
too late to make the discovery after he is dead. If the indications are
sufficiently in his favor for them to accept his money from year to
year while he lives, they are sufficiently favorable to him for his
family to receive the company's money when he has died.
Life-insurance is too valuable and too necessary a means of
provision for the family for it to be overlaid with abuses that make
many men hesitate to avail themselves of its benefits; and which put
a power for evil into strong hands, and make temptation to do
wrong inevitable and constant.
It is said by some, whose attention has been called to this
important subject, that the form of contract does not so much
matter, since almost any court or jury will decide a suit against the
company, and in favor of the family, in any event. This is taking it for
granted that the heirs are in position, and are willing, to bring suit,
and risk the reputation of the dead as well as the financial drain.
But, as a matter of fact, this is not true—nor is it desirable that it
should be. The rights of these corporations should be as jealously
guarded by our courts as the rights of the individual; and perverted
justice is a dangerous tool to handle. The man who signs an
oppressive contract depending upon a court to nullify it after he is
dead, is clinging to a rope of sand. The letter of the bond is what the
court is bound to enforce, and every man should be sure that he
signs only such as shall deal fairly with his heirs on that basis.
The following extract is from the decision of the Court of Appeals
in the famous Dwight case, which is so recently decided as to most
forcibly illustrate this point:
"If an insurance policy in plain and unambiguous language makes
the observance of an apparently immaterial requirement the
condition of a valid contract, neither courts nor juries have the right
to disregard it or to construct, by implication or otherwise, a new
contract in the place of that deliberately made by the parties... Such
contracts are open in construction,... but are subject to it only when,
upon the face of the instrument, it appears that its meaning is
doubtful or its language ambiguous or uncertain.
"An elementary writer says; 'Indeed, the very idea and purpose of
construction imply a previous uncertainty as to the meaning of a
contract, for when this is clear and unambiguous there is no room
for construction and nothing for construction to do.'"
For this reason the Court of Appeals cited as the ground, and the
only ground, for its decision against the widow, the following clause
from the policy of the contesting company:
"This policy is issued, and the same is accepted by the said
assured, upon the following express conditions and agreements:
That the same shall cease and be null and void and of no effect... if
the representations made in the application for this policy, upon the
faith of which this contract is made, shall be found in any respect
untrue."
Colonel Dwight was in the habit of making large business
ventures. Several times, when he had done so, he had taken heavy
amounts of life-insurance, so that in case of the failure of his
undertakings, and his own death before he could regain his financial
feet, his family would not suffer. On previous occasions he had
dropped the greater part of his insurance as soon as his business
ventures had terminated successfully. This is not an uncommon
thing for rich or speculative men to do.
In 1878 Colonel Dwight died, with an insurance on his life of about
$265,000, some of which he had carried for years; but a large part
of it had been recently taken for the reasons above stated, and as
he had done before under similar circumstances. Fifty thousand of
this sum was in old and new policies against one company.
This company paid at once, thus giving the widow means to fight
for her claims against the other companies. In a short time one of
the other companies, against which she had a small claim of $5,000,
also paid. The other nineteen companies contested. The widow
employed Senator Conkling, and the fight has been the hardest, the
bitterest, and the most ghoulish insurance contest ever had in this
country; and finally the companies have won in the Court of Appeals
on a purely technical point, after having dug Colonel Dwight's body
up several times, in the effort to prove that he was poisoned, that he
hung himself, and that he was not dead at all! They failed utterly to
prove any material cause of contest; but they finally won on the
ground that, in answering a question in the application for insurance,
Colonel Dwight did not state that he had ever engaged in the liquor
business, whereas it had been known that he had owned a hotel
where liquor was sold.
Now, when it is remembered that at one time these companies
tried to prove that Colonel Dwight had committed suicide, but that
they never had any grounds upon which to claim that he had died of
intemperance, the purely technical grounds for the decision of the
Court of Appeals is apparent. Ninety-nine policies out of a hundred
could be contested on such ground as that; and so long as insurance
contracts retain these unreasonable and oppressive features, no
man can be sure that he is not leaving a lawsuit and bitter sorrow to
his family, and, worst of all, a blasted reputation for himself, when
he applies for insurance under such a form.
An officer of one of the companies was heard to boast of the fact,
but a few days ago, that his company had spent nearly ten times the
amount of the claim against it in this Dwight contest! This is
economy indeed! Whose money was this spent? The policy-holder's.
For what? To defeat one of the policy-holders in a contest for a claim
no doubt as honest as any one of the others will present in his turn.
But suppose that this was not an honest claim; suppose that
Colonel Dwight was not a "good risk," is it not a rather suggestive
indication of the value of the medical examinations by the expert
medical examiners and directors of twenty-one life-insurance
companies? A risk good enough to "pass" some forty-five doctors
employed by, and for the protection of, the companies is, on the face
of it, a good enough risk to pay. If this is not so, then the
companies, and not the public, should be made to bear the
responsibility of the incompetency of their own officers.
But for the reputation of these medical men, it is a fortunate fact
that the contest did not prove Colonel Dwight to be an unsafe risk.
After his body was dug up several times, and a number of autopsies
held, and most of him analyzed, they succeeded in proving that he
owned a hotel where liquor was sold!
But under these forms of contract, the companies undoubtedly
had a legal right to refuse payment upon even so absurdly technical
a misstatement of "occupation." It was claimed by his family that his
hotel was a side issue; that he did not think of himself as in that
business, and that his failure to say, because of it, that he was "in
any way connected with the manufacture or sale of spirituous
liquors," was a natural one under the circumstances. How many men
give, in answering the question as to occupation in their applications
for insurance, all of the numerous "plants" in which they have an
interest of a financial nature, more or less important? One man says
he is a bookkeeper, but he may possibly, also, own stock in a mine.
His claim could be contested on that ground. Suppose that he really
thought nothing of his mining-stock when he made his application
and signed his contract? Suppose that in a short time he was called
to see the mine, went into it, and died of the results of that trip? His
policy would not, if it contained the usual conditions, be worth, in a
legal fight, the paper it was written on.
That companies often waive their reserved right to contest on
such grounds, is used as an argument to prove the innocent nature
of these forfeiture clauses and other oppressive conditions. But so
long as they hold the legal power to do so, the temptation to contest
will be too great for flesh and blood, not to say for corporations, to
bear without yielding sometimes. The "Get thee behind me, Satan,"
of a fair, plain contract will be the best safeguard for the heirs in the
matter of money, and for the companies in the matter of morals;
while the "economy for the sake of surviving policy-holders" might
be directed, as there is surely room for believing that it needs to be,
into other and more legitimate channels. Economizing on debts to
dead policy-holders is not a very good recommendation to living
ones, for the companies which thus lock the wrong stable-door.
The new move toward furnishing fair contracts is in the right
direction, and it now rests with insurers—the public—to see that it
does not stop short of fulfilling the promise of still better things in
the future.
 POINTS HUMOROUS AND
OTHERWISE ABOUT LIFE
INSURANCE.
Printed in Twentieth Century.
I made up my mind to get my life insured. As i had heard some
one say it was not wise to put all of one's eggs into the same
basket, I decided to apply for a small policy in two of the leading
companies at the same time. I was never seriously ill in my life, so
when I was informed that I had been "held off" by the examining
physician of one company who found theoretical traces of diseased
kidneys, I was a good deal astonished. Professional etiquette
prevented the examining physician of the other company from
passing me until this matter was settled, although he confessed that
he could find no such traces himself. In his opinion my weak spot
was my lungs. "But doctor," said I, "I've got lungs like a bellows. I
was stroke oar at college."
"It doesn't make any difference to our doctor whether you were
stroke oar or a stroke of lightning if he discovers that any of your
ancestors died of consumption," remarked the agent, who had lost
his temper. "You ought to have had better sense than to tell Dr.
Pulmonary that your great aunt coughed before she died. He'd find
evidence of lung trouble in a copper-bottomed boiler if it wheezed
letting off steam. Who examined you over at the other place? Old
Albumen? I'll bet ten dollars he'd find traces of his pet disorder in a
ham if he examined one."
I was getting a little piqued. I concluded to put my application in
to several other companies and take the first policy issued. In
pursuance of this idea I was examined by Dr. Palpitation of the M. of
N. Y. company, and he discovered that I was liable to drop off at any
time from heart failure. He said that he did not wish to alarm me,
but I needed medical care and a very wise and sustained course of
treatment.
At this stage of the proceedings I went to the only physician I had
ever employed for any slight ills during my past career and had him
put me through a thorough and exhaustive physical examination
without disclosing anything of my motive for so doing. He
pronounced me fit for the coming boat race, which was to be an
unusually trying one.
"Any trace of albumen, doctor?" I asked.
"None—not a trace."
"Nothing wrong with my heart or lungs?"
"Look here, boy. If you never die until they give out, you're going
under from old age. I tell you, you are as sound a man as ever lived.
There is absolutely nothing to hang a suspicion of any disorder on.
For my sake I wish there was," he added, laughing and slapping his
pocket.
The next day I had a call from the doctor who had examined me
for the E. of Y. He said that he'd like to have a second pass at my
eyes. He thought there was a look in one of them that indicated
softening of the brain. I laughed.
He remarked that people in the first stages of that trouble usually
took it just that way. It was a symptom.
"You confounded old fool!" said I, losing my temper. "Are you in
earnest? I supposed you were joking from the first but if you're
talking as good sense as you've got just leave this office. I—"
He left.
He reported to his company that I was in a more advanced stage
of the disorder than he had at first feared. I had arrived at the
unnecessarily irritable condition. Of course my case was settled with
that company. Professional etiquette again stepped in, and the
doctor for the M. B. of C. took another whack at my liver. He said
that the organ was badly enlarged and he'd hold me off for one year
to see if it would return to its normal proportions. According to his
diagnosis fully nine-tenths of the population of New York were
carrying around livers that were enough to tire out an ox. He could
tell a big livered man as far as he could see him, and he pointed out
five who passed while he was talking.
He said that enlargment of the liver was getting to be a very real
danger to the population of all of the chief cities, and if the cause
was not soon discovered by the medical profession and a reducing
process, so to speak, clapped on to the metropolitan liver, life
insurance companies would have to keep a mighty sharp eye on all
applicants, or the death rates would wreck the most prosperous of
them in pretty short order.
I was led to infer from the way he poked and prodded around me
and measured and sounded that my liver was rather badly sagged at
one side and that the other lobe was swelled up like a bladder. It
seems as if a person would notice a thing like that himself, but the
doctor said that as like as not I'd never have discovered it at all if he
had not—fortunately for me—been called in to examine me.
He said that he never prescribed for men, he is required to
examine for insurance, but he told me to take a certain remedy for
the next three months and then report to him. Meantime his
company would "hold me off."
"We won't reject you outright," he explained "because this thing
may be only temporary—may not be organic—and it wouldn't be a
fair thing to your heirs to decline you outright, because that would
most likely prevent you from ever getting life insurance anywhere in
the future."
That was a new idea to me and gave me a good deal of a scare.
It occurred to me that the future of a man's family—where it
depended on the insurance money of its head—was subject to
considerable uncertainty from the various fads of the doctors.
Here I was in danger of being rejected—pronounced an unsound
risk—by four separate and distinct companies for four separate and
distinct ailments of which my own doctor could find not the least
trace and I could feel not the faintest twinge.
If any one of them decided positively against me the future of my
family was nil—so far as insurance went, for the examining physician
of no other company would be bold enough or sufficiently lacking in
"professional courtesy" to pronounce in my favor, whether he could
find anything wrong with me himself or not. I began to realize that
what I had so far looked upon as rather a good joke might be
serious after all.
It occurred to me, too, that it would be a good deal more far
reaching than I had supposed.
If Old Pulmonary—as the agent called him—stuck to his theory of
my lungs, not only I, but my children, would be unable to get
insurance. It would establish a family history—a "heredity"—hard to
get rid of. My little joke in speaking of the fact that my aunt had
been said to cough before she died, together with Dr. Pulmonary's
ability to scent lung trouble in the breathing apparatus of a porous
plaster, might lead to a serious complication not only for me but for
my children. I concluded to make a clean breast of it. I did not quite
dare tell Dr. Pulmonary that I had been deliberately guying the
profession—and in fact that was not my first intention—but I asked if
he did not think it a little odd that no two of them had held me off
for the same reason and that each one had found indications of the
particular disorder for which he had a special leaning. He pricked up
his ears at once and asked all about the others. I told him that one
had found albumen, another enlarged liver, and the third was afraid
of heart failure or softening of the brain, and one was still waiting,
because he could find no trouble—on account of professional
etiquette—before reporting at all.
"Meantime my own doctor—the one who has known me from
childhood—pronounces me fit for a scull race," said I a little drily.
"Does your physician know of these examinations?*' he inquired.
"No, he doesn't," I responded rather hotly this time, "or no doubt
he'd have discovered that I had inflammatory rheumatism and
gangrene. He is a good deal of a professional ethic man, himself."
The doctor turned and walked into his private room, promising to
overhaul the papers again and talk with his subordinate.
I hunted up the agent who had first called upon me and
complained that this sort of nonsense had gone about as far as I
wanted it to go. "That old donkey at the head of your medical
department upholds the idiotic report of the young gosling that first
examined me here, notwithstanding the fact that he says himself
that he can't find the first trace of the trouble. Now, if insurance
companies employ impecunious young physicians with little
experience, because they can get them cheap, and then insist upon
it that professional etiquette forbids any other examiner from
correcting their blunders, it seems to me—"
The agent had been looking about carefully to be sure that no one
overheard.
At this point he said:
"Sh! Don't talk so loud. You see young Cardiac, who had you first,
passed a man a short while ago who died in about six months and it
was discovered that he had only a part of one lung and had been
that way for years. The referee—Old Pulmonary is our referee, you
know—gave him a pretty bad scare, and he's afraid to pass anybody
at all since. 'Fraid he'll lose his place. All the agents are mad about
it. Manage to hold their men over for examination until he leaves the
office and then take 'em to another one of the examiners. He'll
refuse every body now for a while—or hold him off. Fully one-half
the men he examined last month were rejected outright or held over.
I didn't know it when I took you to him or I'd have taken you to
some one else to be examined."
"That would be all very well," said I, "if it wasn't for the absurdity
of what the doctors are pleased to call professional etiquette, which
prevents any other examiner for any other company from finding a
man so held or rejected, sound. In the first place nearly all the big
companies refuse to allow any but an 'old school' or 'regular'
allopathic physician to examine a man. Then if that examiner has a
fad, or makes a mistake, they are all banded together to sustain him
in it and not to correct it, even if they can't find the first symptom of
a disease about him. I tell you it is not only outrageous to the man
and his family, but the result will be that men who know it will refuse
to place themselves in any such danger. They won't want a family
record of hereditary diseases made and put on file to stare them and
their descendants in the face just for the sake of professional
etiquette toward some young M. D., who just as like as not got his
place from the fact that he married a daughter of a director of the
company and had to be supported some way and hadn't the skill to
do it in an open field in his profession. Men are not going to stand it.
It will injure them, and it is bound to react on the company too. I'd
never have applied at all if I'd known of it in time. What business
has a company to ask whether an applicant has or has not been
rejected by another company? If their own examiner can't find
anything wrong with him, isn't that enough? This thing of the
doctors of all the companies combining to keep a record against a
man is outrageous. Why can't a company depend on the capacity of
its own medical staff? If it wants any other information of a medical
nature, why isn't the applicant's own family physician quite enough?
I consider the thing a good deal of an outrage, and the company
that omits from its papers the sort of questions that result in this
absurd and oppressive professional etiquette folderol, is going to be
the company of the future. Intelligent men know too well the chaotic
state of medical science to be willing to risk it. Why, good Lord, man,
that softening of the brain—paresis—idiot over at the £. of Y. can,
and no doubt will, give me a record that may cling to me and my
family in a way that might, in many a business or other contingency,
cause the very greatest hardship." I looked up and saw that the
medical referee who had really indicated that he meant to reconsider
my case was standing where he had heard me.
His face was a study* He was angry clear through. He would have
(in a medical journal or debate) taken issue with, and proved the
utter incapacity of nine-tenths of the profession, but to have a
layman criticise their action when it might mean even life or death to
him and his was more than the doctor's adherence to professional
etiquette could bear.

* My friend, the agent, saw his face.

"I'll bet you four dollars, John, that you not only won't get a policy
here now but that no other company will pass you," said he under
his breath. "The old man is on the war path."
That was eight months ago and I'm "held off" in eleven companies
now. I was never sick in my life. I'm as sound in person and in
heredity as any man who ever lived, but I am at the mercy of that
absurdest of all covers for personal incapacity—professional etiquette
—combined with the unreasonable fact that insurance companies
require an applicant to tell their examiners just what piece of idiotic
prejudice has been launched at him by the doctor of every other
company, so that they can all hold together and fit his case to the
reports, and not the reports to the facts in his case as they find
them.
Meantime, Jack Howard, who died last week, poor fellow, was
accepted by five of them because the first examiner who got hold of
him, not being a kidney fiend but having his whole mind on lung
trouble—and Jack had splendid lungs—didn't discover that he was in
the last stages of Bright's disease. His family made $27,000 out of
professional etiquette, and mine—when I die—will most likely lose
that much, together with a reputation for a sound heredity which
may affect the insurers to the third and fourth generation of them
that love truth and tell that their father was rejected by all the
leading life insurance companies for pulmonary trouble, heart
disease, kidney affection, paresis, and enlargement of the liver.
Meantime the first good company that shows enough sense and
sufficient confidence in its own medical men to omit that sort of
questions from its form of examination is going to get me—and a
good many others like me.
 COMMON SENSE IN SURGERY
There are certain forms of expression which once heard fit
themselves into the mind so firmly, and re-appear in one connection
or another so frequently, that one scarcely recognizes the fact even
when one changes a word or two in order to make the original idea
fit the case in point. So when I stood watching the ingenious method
by which the trainers of the English fox-hounds induced each dog to
perform his own surgical operations after a hunt, I remarked, with
no recognition of the plagiarism from Dr. Holmes, "Every dog his
own doctor."
"No," replied the trainer, with a fine sense of distinction which I
had not before observed—"no; I am the doctor; the dogs are the
surgeons. I prescribe; they perform the operation. They do that part
far better than I could; but they wouldn't do it in time to save the
pain and trouble of a much more serious operation that they could
not perform, if I did not set them at it in time, and keep them at
work until all danger of inflammation is past."
It was after a hunt. The dogs—splendid blooded fellows, a great
pack of over sixty of them—had gotten many thorns and briers in
their feet. They came back limping, foot-sore, and with troubled
eyes that looked up piteously for relief from their pain. They were
very hungry too, after the long chase; but "No doctor will allow a
patient to eat just before a surgical operation," remarked the trainer,
dryly. "Now watch."
He threw open a door leading into an outer room of the splendid
Hunt Club Kennel, and gave the word of command.
There was a rush, and the entire pack burst through the wide
entrance. Then every dog lay suddenly down, and began with great
vigor to lick his feet.
 Why? Simply because in rushing through that door they had
waded through a wide, shallow trough or sink of pretty warm soup.
This basin was sunk in the stone floor, and reached entirely across
the door, and was too wide to jump over, even had it been visible
from the outside, which it was not.
The dogs had plunged into it before they knew it was there, and
were instantly out of its rather uncomfortable heat.
Each dog worked at his feet with vigor. He was hungry. The soup
was good; but dogs object to soup on their feet. This process was
continued and repeated until it was thought that all thorns and
briers and pebbles had been licked and picked from the crippled
feet. Then the dogs were fed and put to bed—or allowed to lie down
and sleep—in their fresh straw-filled bunks.
"A doctor and a surgeon may be the same person," remarked the
philosophical trainer, oracularly, "but they seldom are. If you whine—
as the dogs do when their feet hurt after a hunt—or if you limp or
complain, a doctor guesses what is the matter with you. Then he
guesses what will cure you. If both guesses are right, you are in
luck, and he is a skilful diagnostician. In nine cases out of ten he is
giving you something harmless, while he is taking a second and a
third look at you (at your expense, of course) to guess over after
himself."
His medical pessimism and his surgical optimism amused and
entertained me, and I encouraged him to go on.
"Now with a surgeon it is different. Surgery is an exact science.
Before I took this position I was a surgeon's assistant in a hospital.
In some places we are called trained nurses. In our place we were
called surgeons' assistants. That's why I make such a distinction
between doctors and surgeons. I've seen the two work side by side
so long. I've seen some of the funniest mistakes made, and I've
seen mistakes that were not funny. I've seen post-mortem
examinations that would have made a surgeon ashamed that he had
ever been born, looked upon by the doctor who treated the case as
not at all strange; didn't stagger him a bit in his own opinion of
himself and his scientific knowledge next time. I remember one
case. It was a Japanese boy. He was as solid as a little ox, but he
told Dr. G——— that he'd been taking a homoeopathic prescription
for a cold. That was enough for Dr. G———. A red rag in the van of
a bovine animal is nothing to the word 'homoeopathy' to Dr. G———.
Hydropathy gives him fits, and eclecticism almost, lays him out. Not
long ago he sat on a jury which sent to prison a man who had failed
in a case of 'mind cure.' That gave deep delight to his 'regular' soul.
Well, Dr. G——— questioned the little Jap, who could not speak good
English, and had the national inclination to agree with whatever you
say. Ever been in Japan? No? Well, they are a droll lot. Always strive
to agree with all you say or suggest.
"'Did you ever spit blood?' asked Dr. G———, by-and-by, after he
could find nothing else wrong except the little cold for which the
homoeopathic physician was treating the boy.
"'Once,' replied that youthful victim.
"'Aha! we are getting at the root of this matter now,' said Dr. G
———. 'Now tell me truly. Be careful! Did you spit much blood?'
"'Yes, sir; a good deal.'
"The doctor sniffed. He always knew that a homoeopathic humbug
could not diagnose a case, and would be likely to get just about as
near the facts as a light cold would come to tuberculosis.
"'How long did this last?' he inquired of the smiling boy.
"'I think—it seems to me—
"'A half-hour?' queried the doctor; 'twenty minutes?'
"'I think so. Yes, sir. About half an hour—twenty minutes,'
responded the obliging youth.
"I heard that talk. Common-sense told me the boy's lungs were all
right; but it was none of my business, and so I watched him treated,
off and on, for lung trouble for over a month before I got a chance
to ask him any questions. Then I asked, incidentally:
"'What made you spit that blood that time, Gihi?' "'I didn't know I
ought to swallow him,' he replied, wide-eyed and anxious. 'Dentist
pull tooth He say to me, "Spit blood here." I do like he tell me. Your
doctor say ver' bad for lungs, spit blood. Next time I swallow him.'
"I helped another practitioner, in good and regular standing, to
examine a man's heart. He found a pretty bad wheeze in the left
side. I had to nurse that man. He had been on a bat, and all on
earth that ailed him was that spree, but he got treated for heart
trouble. It scared the man almost to death.
"I'd learned how a heart should sound, so one day I tried his. He
was in bed then, and it sounded all right, so when the doctor came
in, I took him aside, and told him that I didn't want to interfere, but
that man was scared about to death over his heart, and it seemed to
me it was all right—sounded like other hearts—and his pulse was all
right too. The doctor was mad as a March h*are, though he had told
me to make two or three tests, and keep the record for him against
the time of his next visit. Well, to make a long matter short, the final
discovery was—the man don't know it yet, and he is going around in
dread of dropping off any minute with heart failure—that at the first
examination the man had removed only his coat and vest, and his
new suspender on his starched shirt had made the squeak. That is a
cold fact, and that man paid over eighty dollars for the treatment he
had for his heart, or rather, for his suspender."
I was so interested in the drollery of this ex-nurse, and in his
scorn for one branch of a profession, while he entertained almost a
superstitious awe and admiration for surgery per se, that I decided
upon my return to New York to visit a great surgeon, and ask him to
allow me to see an operation that would fairly represent the
advance-guard so to speak, the upward reach of the profession as it
is to day.
We all know the physician who follows his profession strictly and
solely as a means of support. Most of us also happily know
something of one or more medical men who are a credit to
humanity, in that they subordinate their ability to extort money from
suffering to their desire to relieve pain, even though such relief
conduces not to their own financial opulence. Very few of us who are
not close students of the medical profession realize, I think, some of
the magnificent developments not only of surgery, but of the
character of the surgeon. We are led to think of them as rather hard
and brutal men. The side of their work and nature that means
tenderness and devotion to the relief of those who, but for the
skilled and brave surgeon, must die or suffer for life, is seldom laid
before us. The quiet, sweet, and simple devotion of such men does
not reach the public ear.
The operation of which I learned, and which is the first of its kind
on record, was so strange, so great, and so far-reaching in its
suggestion and promise that it seemed to me it could not fail to
interest and inspire the general reader, who never sees a medical or
surgical journal, and who would not read it if he did.
Can you think of an operation that would create a mind? Can you
conceive of the meaning to humanity of a discovery that would
transform a congenital imbecile into a rational being? Such an
operation was the one I was privileged to see.
The patient was a child about one year old, of good parentage
and of healthy bodily growth, aside from the fact that its skull was
that of a new-born child, and it had hardened and solidified into that
shape and size. The "soft spot" was not there, and the sutures or
seams of the skull had grown fast and solid, so that the brain within
was cramped and compressed by its unyielding bony covering.
The body could grow—did grow—but the poor little compressed
brain, the director of the intelligent and voluntary actions of the
body, was kept at its first estate. Even worse than this, its struggle
with its bony cage made a pressure which caused distortion and
aimless or unmeaning movement—the arm and leg turned in, in that
helpless, pathetic way that tells of imbecility. In short, the baby was
a physically healthy imbecile—the most pathetic object on this sad
earth. Upon examination, the surgeon, a gentle, sweet-natured man,
whose enthusiasm for his profession—for the relief of suffering—
makes him the object of devotion of many to whom he has given life
and health, and the inspirer and final appeal for many a brother
practitioner, discovered what he believed to be the trouble. Led by
that most uncommon of all things, common sense, he believed that
this little victim of nature's mistake might be changed from a
condition far worse than death to one of comfort for itself, and to
those who now looked upon it only in anguish of soul.
After explaining to the parents and the surgeons who had come to
witness the wonderful experiment (for, after all, at this stage it was
but an experiment based upon common-sense) that it might fail;
after a modest and simple statement of his reason for undertaking
so dangerous an operation, with no precedent before him; after
explaining that the parents fully understood that not to try it meant
hopeless idiocy, and that the trial might mean death—he began the
work. I shall try to tell what it was in language that is not scientific,
and may seem to those accustomed to surgical terms inadequate
and unlearned; but to those who are not technical medical students
I believe the less technical language will be far clearer.
The child's skull was laid bare in front. Two tracks were cut from a
little above the base (or top) of the nose up and over to the back of
the head. One of these tracks was cut on each side, the surgeon
explained, because it would give equal expansion to the two sides of
the brain, and because it would cause death to cut through the
middle of the top of the head, where lies "the superior longitudinal
sinus." He left, therefore, the solid track of bone through the middle,
and cut two grooves or tracks through the bone, one on either side,
where nature (when she does not make a mistake) leaves soft or
yielding edges, by means of which the normal skull expands to fit
the needs of the brain within.
The trench made displaced, or cut away, one-quarter of an inch of
solid bone all the way from near the base of the nose to the back
part of the head. In the middle of the top of the head on each side a
cross-wise cut was made, and one inch of bone divided. Another cut
was made on either side, slanting toward the ears. This was one
inch and a half long. The surgeon then tenderly inserted his
forefinger, pressed the internal mass loose from the bones where it
adhered, and pushed the bones wider apart. This process widened
the trenches to one inch.
 The wound was now dressed with the wonderfully effective new
aseptics, and the flesh and skin closed over. The operation had taken
an hour and a half. There was little bleeding. The baby was, of
course, unconscious during the entire time. Oh, the blessings of
anaesthetics! And now comes the wonderful result of this bold and
radical but tender and humane operation.
The baby rallied well. In three days it showed improved
intelligence. In eight days this improvement was marked. From a
creature that sat listless, deformed, and unmindful of all about it, it
began to "take notice," like other children. From an "it," it had been
transformed into a "he." It had been given personality. It ate and
slept fairly well.
On the tenth day the wound was exposed and dressed. It had
healed, or "united by first intention," as the doctors say; and again
one can but exclaim, "Oh, those wonderful aseptic dressings!" It had
united without suppuration. It was a clean wound, cleanly healing.
One month after the operation the feet and hands had
straightened out, and lost their jerky, aimless movements. The child
is now a child. It acts and thinks like other children, laughs and
cooes and makes glad the hearts of those who love it.
Not like other children of its age, perhaps, for it has several
months yet to "catch up," but the last report, in one of the leading
medical journals, said:
"One month after the operation the change in its condition was
surprising and gratifying. The deformities in the extremities had
entirely disappeared, and there was evidently a remarkable increase
in intelligence. It noticed those about it, took hold of objects offered
it, laughed, and behaved much as children of ordinary development
at six or eight months. The pupils were no longer widely dilated, but
appeared normal. It eats and sleeps well, and is in general greatly
improved as a result of the operation."
If in one month the little imprisoned brain was able to "catch up"
six or eight months, we may surely believe that the remaining four
or five months which it lost, because nature sealed the little
thinking-machine firmly in too small a casket, will be wiped away
also, and the little victim of nature's mistake be given full and normal
opportunity through the skill and genius of man.*

*It has now been several years since the operation, and the
child is like other children.—H. H. G.

Is not that common-sense in surgery?

Could anything be more wonderful? Could any operation open to

the future of the race wider possibilities and offer more brilliant
hope? I may quote here farther from the same medical journal the
report of Dr. Wyeth, himself:
"The operation differs from any yet done. Lanne-longue, Keen,
and others cut a trench about a quarter of an inch in width, and on
one side, at a single operation. It seemed to me if the brain was
penned in by premature ossification of the cranial bones, these
should be torn loose and permanently lifted, thus allowing a
thorough expansion. Should only temporary benefit be secured, the
operation should be repeated. Experience alone can demonstrate
whether the expansion of the brain will be able to spread the cranial
bones to such an extent that it may reach even an ordinary
development. The condition of these patients is so hopeless and
deplorable that, in my opinion, very great risk is justifiable in any
surgical interference which offers even a hope of amelioration."
Thus the race is quietly achieving mastery over the blind forces of
nature, and the steady hand of science, coupled with tenderness
and sincerity, is pushing back some of the worst horrors of life, and
throwing a flood of light and hope into the future! It makes one's
step lighter and one's face happier only to think of these marvellous
achievements and victories. A new impulse of hope and happiness
dawns upon life. I owed this new inspiration to my pessimistic
acquaintance—he of the Hunt Club Kennel—and the introduction he
gave me to the rudiments of applied surgery. It was indeed a long
sweep from the one operation to the other.
My first and second glimpses of the operating-room were surely
the two extremes, and yet when I suggested this to Dr. Wyeth, the
great and gentle surgeon who performed this operation, he smilingly
replied that, after all; either or both—indeed, all of it—was simply
common-sense in surgery.
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