The Logan County banner. [volume] (Logan, W. Va.) 1889-1903, 1892-07-14

man suffers infinitely more from q bod
lily injury that the savage His brain
and nervous system, as the outcome of
centuries Of intellectual improvement,
are far more developed and far more
highly strung; so that DIR. Felkin, who,
in the course of long series Of surgical
operations performed upon patients Of
all nationalities, enjoyed unusual facil-
tiles for forming an opinion, arrived at
the deliberate conclusion that the sus-.
ceptibility to pain of an average Euro
pean, as compared with that of the av-
erage negro, was as three to one. The
stoieism Of the North American Indian
at the stake has often been adduced as
striking evidence of fortitude under
extreme suffering; but it seems, as
matter of fact, to be quite as largely due
to dizziness of the sensory nerves. And
it is well known that savages of almost
every race will endure, and be compar-
atively unaffected by, injuries that
would at =opee lay civilized man pros
tratN Witness, for xampie,lthe4heH-a
rible rites of limitation" into the full
privileges of manhood practised by the
Mandans, the Marquarri dance of the
Guiana, and the still more hideous sun
dance of many of the North American
tribes. And when we read of Kaffir
laughing merrily at the appearance
which his own thigh, after asevere com
pound fracture, presented; and second,
whose skull had been broken in by blow
from knobkerry, submitting calmly and
without an@sthetics to the operations
of trepanning, and walking away after
wards as though nothing had happened.
and of a third holding on his cheek,
which had been almost entirely Sliced
off by blow from sword, and yet
yelling and shouting with his comrades
in the enjoyment of victory; we
may not feel inclined to deny that the
savage feels, but we cannot hold that
he feels as we feel
And the second factor is that Of edu-
cation, which greatly increases the
natural susceptibility to pain. The ag-
ricultural laborer is much less sensitive
of nerve than the artisan; the artisan
than the scholar and brainworker. And
DIR. Felkin, in the Investigations alluded
to above, also discovered that the effect
of fair measure of education upon a
negro was to increase the susceptibility
to pain by third. For education,
which is only civilization carried on, re-
suits in still further development of
the brain, and consequently Of the
| nervous system which depends upon
it: and the price for increased in.
te1lfgence is-paid- in increased sem
sibility to pain. So that an injury
which to the mar. of intellect NAV mean
positive agony, by the ploughman will
be not only endurable. but scarcely no.
ticed at all. Fer it is the brain, and
the brain alone that feels. although
the actual sensation is localized. Cut
the trunlx-nerya which connects the
seat of the injury produced instantly
ceases to be felt. For the nerves are as
telegraph wires, which communicates
the fact of the injury to the brain, and
| receive in return the sensation which it
| experiences And it is therefore EASY
to understand how the degree of
development to which the brain has at
tanned affects and controls the degree
of intensity of possible pain.
When the constituencies of the negro,
comnared with that of the Euronean ia