The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-04-17
SENSE OF TOUCH.
The Most Complex and Least Understood
of the Human Senses.

of the Human Senses.
OF all the senses we possess the sense
of touch is mt once the most complex
and the least understood. Blindness
and deafness are only too common, and
we can all more or less appreciate the
nature and extent of these dire Attic
tons. But who ever thinks how he
would be affected by deprivation of the
capacity to feel, inability to dis
tinguished by touch between smooth
ness and roughnesS, heat and cold, OF
by an impaired power to receive the
various sensations of pain and pleasure
which reach us through the surface of
the body? How is it that the same
finger which tells us that substance is
hard or soft, tells us also that it is hot
or cold? Have we, Us some physiolo-
giSts aver. Il sixth sense, that of tempera-
tureP If not, how comes it that n
single touch of the finger conveys TO
the brain, in the same instant, two
distinct impressions, perhaps three, for
the substance in question may be wet,
as well as hot or cold, hard or softe
Psychologists can not tell us; they only
know that the sensations so conveyed
are separable. and that the ways by
which they reach the brain are not the
same. The subject is by no means new,
but fresh light has lately been thrown
on it by the researches of two Swiss
savants, NJ. A. Herzen and Prof. Soret.
The observations of these gentlemen,
besides being highly interesting,
psychologically as well as physiolo-
gically, are of considerable practical
Importance in their relation to tho
training of the blind.
Pressure on a limb-as, for instance.
when we fall asleep lying on one of
our arms if continued for some time,
makes it more or less numb. 1t grad
ually loses the power of transmitting
sensations to the brain. According to
the observations of NJ. Herzen, the first
sense lost is that of touch, the second
that of cold. the third that of pain, the
last that of heat. He says that when
one of his arms is so torpid that he has
to feel for it with the other, and it is
impervious to pinch or n prick, it is
still sensible to the warmth of the other
hand. If the pressure be prolonged.
the limb ceases to be affected even by
heat. There are people, otherwise
healthy, whose capacity of feeling is SO
far incomplete that they never know
what it is to be cold so far as sensations
conveyed by the skin are concerned.
Winter is the same to them as summer
This probably arises from an abnormal
condition of the spinal cord. NJ. Her
zen mentions the case of an old woman
whose legs, partially paralyzed, could
feel only pain and cold. At her autopsy
it was found that the spinal cord in the
neighborhood of the nervous centres of
the back was shriveled and otherwise
in an unhealthy state. But NJ. Herzen
has not rested content with observa-
tons on his own species; he has made
experiments on the lower ami
mails, classified several of the sensations
of touch, and discovered their loca-
tons in the organism; and Prof. Soret,
taking up the psychological branch
of the subject, has tried to find out how
far the sense of touch may be made to
convey to the sightless All idea of the
beautiful. For as a deaf musician may
enjoy music, despite his deafness. so
may blind man find pleasure in
beauty of form, notwithstanding his
blindness. In the one case the pleas
ure comes from the rhythm, or rather
from sonorous vibrations in the air,
produced by the playing; in the other
from the symmetry and regularity of
the object handled.
"When music is going on / feel
something here" said to M. Soret a
deaf mute who enjoyed operas, putting
his hand on his stomach. The blind,
even those born blind, as Prof. Soret
has ascertained by inquiries among the
inmates of the Blind Asylum of Lau-
same, have the same love of symme-
try rs the deaf The girl embroiderers
attach much Importance to the perfect
regularity of the designs which they
are required to reproduce in their work.
The basket-makers insist on the willow
withes they use being all straight and
of the same length. Solutions of con-
tinuity in the things they handle are,
to the blind, indications of ugliness.
Fhey like evenness of surface, regular
ity of shape; cracked pot, a rough
table or broken chair causes them
positive discomfort But to create in
the mind of a person born bin d an
artistic idea involves a measure of psy-
Geological development which it is very
difficult to impart, and requires from
both teacher and scholar great pa
thence and long-sustained effort. Pail