St. Mary's beacon., 1858-08-26
The Philosphy of Pain.

Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy, with
the defiant cons.ancy of youth which had as
yet suffered nothing, held the opinion that
pain was no evil He was refuted by a crab
which bit his toe While bathing, and made
him roar loud enough TO be heard a mile of
II ne had maintained, instead, that pain was
good, his doctrine would have been unim-
peachable. Unless the whole constitution Of
the world were altered, our existence depends
on our sensihility 10 suffering. An anecdote
related by DR.. Carpenter, in his principles Of
Human Physiology, from the Journal of q
Naturalist" shows the fatal effects Of tenn
pCrary suspension Of this law Of our nature.
A drover went to sleep on a winters evening
upon the platform of a lime-kin, 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 of above the ancle, and when
reused in the morning by the man who su-
perintentled the lime-kiln, he put his stump
unconscious Of his misfortune, to the ground,
the extremity crumbled into fragments.-
Whether he had been iulled in torpor by the
carbonic acid driven of from the limestone, or
whatever else may have been the cause of his
insensibility, he felt no pain, and through his
very exemption from this lot Of humanity, ex-
pired in fortnight afterwards in Bristol Hos
pital.
Without the warning voice Of pain, life
would be series Of similar disasters. The
crab. to the lasting detriment of chemistry.
might aave eaten of Sir Humphreys foot
while he was swimming, without his enter
taininS the slightest suspicion of the ravages
which were going on. Had he survived the
injuries from the crab, he would yet have been
cut of in the morning of his famous career. if.
when experimenting upon the gases, the terri
rible oppression At his chest had not warned
him to cease inhaling the carburetted hydro
GEL, nor, after q q long struggle for life. would
he have recovered to say 10 his alarmed as
sistant, 81 do not think shall die"
Without physical pain, infancy would be
manned or perish before experience could in
form it Of It's dangers. Lord Kaimes advised
parents to cut the fingers oftheir children scum
ning,y" with knife. that the little innocents
might associate suffering with the glittering
blade before they could do themselves worse
injury; but 1t no smart accompanied 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 ere.
Without pain We could not proportion our
arttonS I'd the strength OF our frame, or our
exertians to its power Of endurance
In the impetuosity OF youth we should strike
blows that would crush 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 sports and our walking
tours till We had worn out the living tissue
with the same Inconsistencies that we now
wear out our coats and our Shoes The very
nutrin,ent which is tn. support Of life would
frequently prove our death. Mirabean said Of
a man who was corpulent, that his only use
was 20 show how far the skin would stretch
without bursting Without pain, this limit
would he constantly exceeded and epicures,
experiencing no uneasy sensations. would CON-
TIME their festivities until they met with the
tate Of the frog in the fable, who was ambitious
Of emulafing the size Of the or. ~ .A2f
Sir Charles Bell mentions the case of pa
dent who had lost the sensc Of heat In his night
hand, and who, unconscious that the cover of
q pan which had fallen into the Gre was burn
ing hat took e out and deliberately resnrued
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