Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-31
WOMEN ENDURE PAIN
Better ghan Men Because They're
Less Sensitive to Its Effects.
HOW PROF. LOMBROSO PROVES IT.
A Model for the Worlds Fair That viii
Show the Ocean Currenta
SPRAYING APPLES WITH PARIS GREEN
WRITTEN FOR THE DIspArcH.1

rwR1rrEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.1
Not long ago Professor Lombroso raised
hue and cry throughout many lands BY
the assertion that women can bear pain
better than men simply because they ara
less sensitive to its effects. Many of the
leading physicians of New York were ap-
pealed to for their experience on the sub
ject, and they one and all gallantly pro-
tested that woman deserved all the credit
given her for her fortitude under pain, and
declared that the idea that her ability to
Withstand the effects of suffering was caused
by comparative insensibility was untenable.
There is. however, little instrument
called the esthesiometer, which tells diff
ferent story, and bears out fully the now
widely known opinions of Professor Lom-
broso. The faculty of pain bearing in wo-
man has generally been attributed to Q
superior quality of mental control, whereby
the female system could be "keyed up" to
a certain required condition until the un-
usual strain had passed by, when the col
lapse that was sure to follow could e1pend
itself In profuse weeping and those other
feminine weaknesses which 60 so far to
compensate the sex for pain, sorrow Or
anxiety.
Prof Lombroso holds, with many physi-
ologists, that feminine self-abandonment
in moments of painful emotion is due prob
ably to two causes. First, the fact that the
than the male brain over reflex and semi
reflex actions: and, secondly, the peculiar
nature of woTan's early training"
Prof. Lombroso quotes Carle, the famous
surgeon, as having informed him that In his
experience the majority of women allow
themselves to be operated upon with aston
ishing insensibflity, almost as though the
body beneath the surgeons knife was that
of another and not their own, and n case is
recorded during the last year in which a
woman who had to submit to series OF op-
placed under the knife. Giordano is quoted
as saving that, even in the midst of the
throes of childbirth, despite their apprehen-
sions, women suffer much less than Is gener-
ally supposed.
DR.. Martini famous Italian dentist, has
been surprised to observe that women
undergo every variety of dental operation
with much more courage and facility than
mon, and DR.. Mela adds that men under the
dentists hands swoon much more frequently
thai do women.
The esthesiometer by the aid Of which
Professor Lombroso has been able to throw
so much light on this interesting subject is
made on the model OF pair of calipers,
with the points somewhat rounded or knob
like. 1t is used to test the tactile sens-
bility of a person, j. e., to ascertain how near
together these points may be brought be.
loTc tHey lcel as Onc pOluh auu ILo uuaI iu-
preston that they should make is lost.
Attached to the instrument is a graduated
scale which measures the tactile insensi-
bility in milimeters.
In measuring the power of sensitiveness
to pain at the tip of the forefnger i'll over
hundred women, Lombroso found that, ex-
cept in the case OF very young girls, whose
tactile sensiriyeness is exceedingly de-
yeloped, woman's sense of touch is, in
general, nearly twice as obtuse as that Of
man.
After testing touch, taste and smell, the
learned professor directed his experiments,
by means of the electric algometer, to the
field of general sensibility. By these eX-
periments it was clearly shown that woman
is inferior to man in her sensibtlity to pain,
and, as a consequence, is by that much
better able to bear pain with fortitude.
Among no less than so women of the lower
class the general sensibility was represented
by an average of 80 mm., and sensibility to
pain by So mm.: while among men of the
same class the figures were 81 mm. and 81
nm. respectively. In very young men he
found general sensibility TO be represented
by 95 mm., and that of pain by 70 mm, while
the measurements for young girls were 81
and 70 MN.