Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-07-09
have achieved your heroic work, it affords
me great pleasure to be the medium of the
award of the accompanying medal in testi-
mony of your heroism.
stRespectfnllv youra
HE MUST BE WRONG.

hespecGfully yours,
| CHARLES FOSTER, Secretary"
HE MUST BE WRONG.
Cesar Lombroso, professor of medicine
in the University of Turin, has recently
attracted much attention as the promul
gator of an original theory which he calls
''The physical insensibility of women
From his experiments upon fifty italian
women with the esthesiometer and cleo.
trio algometer, whatever these may be, and
from the testimony of some European
surgeons and dentists, he concludes that
women generally suffer less pain than men,
both mental and physical, that women
bear pain with much more courage, patti
ence and fortitude than men show,
because of their less sensitive nervous or
ganization. He also declares that this by
pothesis is the only one that will explain
the greater longevity of women.
'tSensory obtuseness," as Professor Lom-
broso terms tits the last thing with which
women ever expected to be charged. The
new theory will find no supporters among
them, nor does it among leading surgeons,
physicians and dentists OF America, who
refuse to sanction his arguments, finding
experience. ttHis inferences," says
DR.. Dana of New York, care
drawn from insufficient data" Even if q
thousand tests were made the results might
be trustworthy for the italian race alone.
His observations have convinced him that
women suffer more pain than men-that
in forty years of life, person for person,
the woman suffers three times as much as
the man.
DR.. Grace Peckhsm, who has made
study of esthesiography, has made
larger number of experiments than
Prof. Lombroso records, has written
an instrument to make the regis
ter of sensation more precise, agrees
with DR.. Dana as to the insuf6ciency of the
tests. The instrument used she declares
to be untrustworthy since it took no ac-
count of the pressure from the hand of the
operator. She believes that women en-
dure pain better than men because their
nerve fibre gets accustomed to 1t, and that
their greater longevity is explainable by
the fact that in their more secluded lives
they are in less danger from accidents and
from diseases caused by exposure.
DR.. Seneca NJ. Powell declares that nerve
fibre from any similar part of the body in
the two sexes shows no anatomical differ
ence under the microscope, or in any way.
Women are better patients than men, be-
ing more careful and conscientious about
following directions. There is certainly
great deal of difference in the ways in
which men and women suffer pain, but it
does not follow that women suffer less.
They simply make less fuss about it. For
titude also Is largely q matter of educa-
tion and training. Women of different
classes, men from different localities, vary
greatly in their ability to bear suffering
with patience.
DR.. Abbott, prominent New York dem
tist of long and varied experience, says
chair oftener than women do, that Is far
from proving that they feel more pain.
1t is usually young men who swoon;
"when men get on toward middle age and
have suffered more pain, and grown bet
ter accustomed to it, and have learned to
consider it philosophically, then they bear
it with more fortitude and more as women
do" 1t is not necessary to quote this gen.
tleman further. The point is made.
DR.. Allan McLane Hamilton and DIR.
William T. Bull agree in believing that an
unvary.ng line cannot be drawn between
men and women on the question of sensi-
bility to pain. 1t is matter of individual
fibre. '.It is impossible" says Dr. Bull,
tions, any certain thing hurts one person
more than another. The actual amount of
pain that is felt cannot be measured. But
it is possible to say which one bears the
pain with the greater fortitude."
Women have for long centuries been ac-
quiring the art of concealing suffering or
of bearing it with brave cheerfulnsss.
Like pain, endurance is their heritage. If is
il supposed that because they do not grum-
BILE they do not suffer, the lack of sympathy
becomes an added trouble to be borne.
But to judge from a small number of in
adequate tests that they are charac-
terized in general by a marked degree
of sensory obtuseness is manifestly as
unfair as to judge of masculine fortitude
from the manner and language of the av-
erage man when he pounds his thumb
nail. Anyone with any experience of life
can tell of manly and Of womanly heroisn.
of the long, patient struggle with disease,
of uncomplsining fortitude, of agony en-
dured in silence with supreme courge lest
those who are dearest should know. The
line cannot be drawn. 1t is matter of
heredity, of education, of moral courage
or will power, and oftentimes of trust in
the divine love that brings strength, and
comfort and resignation, and even "builds
bridge across the gulf of Death"
HILARY