Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-08-30
! The Philosophy Of Pain.

Humphrey Davy, when boy, with the
defanfconstancy Of youth which had as yet
suffered nothing, held the opinion that pain
was no evil. He was refuted by crab which,
bit his toe while bathing, and made him roar
loud enough to be heard mile of. If he had
maintained, instead, that pain was a good,
his doctrine would have been unimpeaehable.
Unless the whole constitution of the worlL
were altered, our existence depends on our
sensibility to suffering An anecdote, re-
lated by DR.. Carpenter in his principles of
Human Physiology" from the Journal of
naturalist, shows the fatal effects of tenn
porary suspension of this law of our nature
A drover went to sleep on winters eve
ming upon the platform of lime-kiln, with
one leg resting upon the stones which had
been piled up to burn through the night.
That which was gentle warmth when he lay
down became consuming fire before he rose
up. His foot was burned off above the ankle,
and when reused in the morning by the man
who superintendent the lime-kiln, he put his
stump. unconscious of his misfortune to the
ground, the extremity crumbled into frag-
ments. Whether he had been lulled into tor
por by the carbonc acid driven off from the
limestone or whatever else may have been the
cause of his insensibility, be felt no pain. and
through his very exemption from this lot of
humanity. expired in a fortnight afterwards
in Bristol Hospital.
Without the warning voice of pain, life
would be a series of similar disasters. The
crab. to the lasting detriment of chemistry
might have eaten off Sir Humphreys foot
while he was swimming, without his enter
tanning the slightest suspicion of the ravages
which were going on. Had he survived the
injuries from the crab, he would yet have
been cut off in the morning of his famous
career. If, when experimenting upon the
gases, the terrible oppression at his chest
had not warned him to cease inhaling the
carburated hydrogen, nor, after long strug-
gle for life, would he have recovered to say
tn his alarmed assistant, II do not think
shall die"
Without physical pain, infancy would be
manned, or perish before experience could
inform it of its dangers. Lord Kaims advised
parents to cut the fingers of their children
'cunningly" with knife, that the little
innocents might associate suffering with the
glittering blade before they could do them
selves a worse injury: but if no smart ac-
companed the wound. they would cut up
their own fingers with the same glee that
they cut stick, and burn them in a candle
with the same delight that they burn piece
Of paper in the fire.
Without pain we could not proportion our
actions TO the strength of our frame, or our
exertions to its power of endurance.
In the impetuousity of youth we should
strike blows that would crnsh our hands, and
break our arms; we should take leaps that
would dislocate our limbs; and, no longer
taught by fatigue that the muscles needed
repOse, we should continue our sport and our
walking tours till We had worn out the living
tissue with the same uncOnsciousness that we
now wear out our coats and our shoes. The
very nutriment, which is the support of life,
would frequently prove our death. Mirabeau
said OF man who was as idle as he was
corpulcnt that his only use was to show how
far the skin would stretch without bursting.
Without pain this limit would be constantly
exceeded, and epicures, experiencing no
uneasy sensations, would continue their
festivities until they met with the fate of the
frog in the fable, which was ambitious of
emulatlng the size of the OK.
Sir Charles Bell mentions the case of a pa
tent who had lost the sense of heat in his
right hand, and who, unconscious that the
cover of pan which had fallen into the fire
was burning hot, took it out and deliberately
returned it to its proper place, to the destruc-
ton Of the skin of the palm and fingers. This,
of itself, would be an accident of incessant
occurrence ifthe monitor were wanting, which
makes us drop such materials more hasty
than We pick them up. Pain is the grand
preserver of existence, the sleepless sentinel
that watches over our safety, and makes us
both start away from the injury that is
present and guard against it carefully in the
time to come.-LOndon Quarterly ReUieac.