Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-06-20

sion upon the nerves. blow, for example,
or the prick OF pin-is felt at the mo-
ment IT is inflicted. The nerves are not
the repositories of sensation they are but
the conductors of the motion which pro-
duces sensation. The seat of sensation is
the brain, and to it the intelligence of any
injury done to the nerves has to be trans
m1tted before the injury becomes manifest
III consciousness. The transmission, more
over, requires time, and the consequence
Is that wound inflicted on part of the
body distant from the brain is more tardilv
Appreciated than one afflicted adjacent
to the brain. By an ingenious experiment
talarrangement, Helmboltz has determined
the velocity of nervous transmission. both
in warm blooded and cold blooded animals.
In frog, he found the velocity to be about
eighty feet second, or less than one-thir-
teenth of the velocity ofssound in air. IF
this hold good asst probably does, in the
case of whale, then a creature of this
class eighty feet long, if wounded in the
tall would not, as Helmboltz remarked, be
conscious of the injury till second after
the wound had been inflicted q Butsthis
is moi the only Ingredient in thedelay that
occurs between the impression on the
nerves and the consciousness of the i'm
pression.l There can scarcely be doubt
that to every act of CONSCIOUSNESS belongs
a -determinate molecular arrangement of
the brain-that every thought or feeling
has it's physical correlative in that organ
and nothing can be more certain than that
every physical change, whether molecular
or mechanical, requires time for lis accom-
plishment. So that, even after the
mof an Impression, made
upon a distant portion of the body,
has reached the brain, a still further
time is necessary for the brain itself to put
its house in iorder-for its molecules to
take up the position necessary to the COM
pietion of Consciousness. Helmboltz con-
siders one-tenth of second necessary for
this purpose. Thus, in the case of the
whale, we have one second consumed in
the transmission of Intelligence through
the censor nerves from the tail to the head :;
one tenth of a second is required by the
brain to become conscious of the intelli-
gence it has received and if the velocity
ofntfahsmission through the motor is to be
the same as that through the censor nerves,
"a second would be, consumed in sending a
command to- tail to defend itself Thus
more than two seconds would elapse before
an impression made upon its caudal nerves
could be responded to by whale eighty
feet long. IN
d Now, it is quite conceivable that an in
Jury might be inflicted which would rem
der the nerves unfit to be the conductors
of the motion which results in sensation 4
and ii such thing occurredg no matter
how severe the injury might be, we should
not be conscious of it. Or it may be that
long before the, time required forthe brain
itself to complete The arrangement necessa-
ry for the act of consciousness, it's power
Of arrangement might be wholly suspend
ed In such ca Sc, also. hough the injury
might be- of SUCH nature as to. cause
death, this would occur not only without
pain, but absolutely without feeling of any
kind. Death, in this case, would simply be
the sudden negation of life, accomplished
without any Intervention Of consciousness.
Doubtless there are many kinds of death,
of this character. The passage af a mus
point and the placid aspectof man thus
killed is. in perfect accordance with the
conclusion which might be drawn q prioFi
from the'experimen Of Helmboltz. Cases
of 'insensibility, moreover, are not uncom
mon, which do not result in death, and
after which the persons affected have been
able't TO tell that'no pain was felt prior to
the loss, of consciousness. t94si45 qdaq.I Il II
The time required for rifle bullet to
pass through mans head may be roughly
estimated at one-thousandth of q second.
Here, therefore. we should have no room
for sensation, and death would be painless.
But there are other actions which far
transcend in rapidity the rifle bullet. A
flash of lightning comes, appearing and
disappearing in less than one hundred
thousandth of q second and the velocity
of electricity is such as would carry it
over a distance equal to that which
separates the earth and the moon in q sin
gle second. 1t is well known that lumin-
GUS impression once made upon the retlna
endures, for about one-sixth of a seco nd
and that this is the reason that we see a
ribbon of light when a glowing coal is
caused to pass rapidly through the air A
body illuminated by an instantaneous flash
continues to be seen for the sixth Of a sec
ond after the flash has become extinct;
and if the body thus Illuminated be in
motion, it appears at rest al the place
which is occupied when the flash fell
upon il .@2A-A & q - 4 e
The color top is familiar to most of us.
By this instrument a disc with differently
colored sectors is caused to rotate rapidly
the colors blend together and if they are
chosen in the proportion necessary to form
white light, the disc appears white when
the motion is sufficiently rapid. Such a
top rotating in a dark room, and iliumin-
ated by an electric spark, appears notion
less, each distinct color being clearly seen.
Professor Dove has found that flash of
lightning produces the same effect. Dur
ing thunder storm he put color-top in
exceedingly rapid motion, and found that
every flash revealed the top as motion
less object, with colors distinct. If llumi-
mated solely by a fash of lightning, the
motion Of all bodies on the earth's surface
would, as Dove remarked, appear suspend
ed. A cannon ball, for example, would
have its fight apparently. arrested, and
seem to hang motionless in space as long
as the luminous impression which revealed
the ball remained upon the eye. 6 :. AZ, -.
If then, rifle bullet moves with suf1-
cient rapidity to destroy life without the
| interposition of sensation, much more is
the flash of lightning competent to pro
| duce this effect. Accordingly, we have
well authenticated cases of people being
struck senseless by lightning, who, on re-
] covery, had no memory of pain. The fol-
| lowing circumstantial case is described by
Hemmer :. On the Both of june, 1888, q sol
dier in the neighborhood of Mannheim
being overtaken by rain, placed himself
| under tree beneath which a woman had
| previously taken shelter. He looked up
ward to see whether the branches were
thick enough to afford the required pr0tec-
! ton, and Just then was struck by light
| n;no and foil senSelesS tn the earth The