The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1875-01-14
The Philosophy of Pain.


Sir Humphrey Davy, when a boy,
with the defiant constancy of youth
| which had as vet suffered nothing, held
! the opinion that pain was no evil. He
/ was refuted bv a crab who bit mis- toe
when he was bathing, and made him
roar loud enough to be heard half g
mile off If he had maintsined, instead,
that pain was good, his doctrine would
have been unimpeachGble. Unless the
whole constitution OF the world was al
tered, our very existence depends upon
our sensibility TO suffering. An anec-
dote, which is quoted By DR.. Carpenter
in his Principles of Human Physi IL
ogy,' from the Journal of a Natural
ist,' shows the fatal effects of a tempo
rary suspension of the law of our
nature.
A drover went to sleep on winters
evening upon the platform of s. 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, be-
came a consuming fire before he rose up.
His foot was burnt off above tho ankle,
and when, reused in the morning by the
man who superintended the lime kiln,
he put his stump, unconscious of his
misfortune, to the ground, the extrem-
itY crumbled into fragments. Whether
he had been lulled into torpor by the
earbonie acid driven off from the lime
stone, or whatever else may have been
the cause of his insensibility, he felt no
pain, and through his very exemption
flom this lot of humanity, expired 8
fortnight afterwards IN Bristol hospital.
Without the warning voice of pain,
life would be a series of similar disas-
ters. The crab, TO the lasting detri-
ment of chemistry, might have eaten
off the future of Sir Humphreys foot
while he was swimming, without his
entertaining the slightest suspicion of
the ravages which were going on. Had
he survived the injuries from the crab,
he would yet heve been cut off in the
morning of his famous career, if when
experimenting upon the gases, the ter
rible oppression at his chest had not
warned him to cease inhRling the car
buretted hydrogen, nor after a long
struggle for life, would he have recOv-
cred to say to his alarmed assistant, 1
do not think I shall die
Without physical pain infancy would
be MANNED or perish before experience
could inform it of its danger. Lord
Kaimes advised parents to cut the fin
gers of their children cunningly' with
a knife, that the little innocents might
associate suffering with the glittering
blade before they could do themselves
q worse injury but if no smart accom-
panied the wound they would cut up
their own fingers with the same glee
that they cut up a stick, and burn them
in a candle with the same delight that
they burn a piece of paper in the fire.
Without pain we could not proportion
our actions to the strength of our frames,
or our exertions to its powers of en-
durance.
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
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 corpu-
lent, 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, ex-
periencing no uneasy sensations, would
continue their festivities until they met
with the fate of the frog in the fable,
who was ambitious of emulating the
size of the OK.
Sir Charles Bell mentions the case of
q patient 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 destruction of the
skin of the palm and fingers. This of
itself would be an accident of inoessant
occurrence, if the monitor were wanting,
which makes us drop such things quick
er than we pick them up. Pain is the
grand preserver of existence, the sleep
less sentinel that watches over our safe
ty, and makes us both start away from
the injury that is present and guard
against it carefully in the time to come.
London Quarterly ReUieaO.