Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1897-07-22
THE USES or PAIN.
They May lac Safely Rcd3ecd AS Citili.al
tIun Advances.


tiun Advances.
The statement of DR.. =. Weir
Mitchell, III his address, on Tho
Birth and Death of Pain" at the
Boston celebration of the Semicen-
tcnnial of anuSthrsia, that the pur-
pose of pain il IA riddle to which
earth can give no answer, liz called
i'll question by the editor of The
Hospital III Il leading article. For
the editor the use of pain, far from
being a riddle, il so clear that he
who runs may read. Pain IL to the
ordinary man Il warming of danger.
Says the editorial to which we refer:
Here Is Il man with Il painful
broken arm. Docs the pain servo
any special purpose, any purpose
which might not as we'll have been
served without it, Most aSSurcdly it
does. But for the pain the average
man-not, perhaps, the scientific
man, but the average man-would
not pay heed to his injury, would
not, in fact, devote the necessary
time and trouble TO its perfect re
pair. We have to consider what the
average man is for the purposes of
this discussion. He is not the average
modern American or modern Euro
pNan, tinCturCd with all the culture
all the science, all the high moral
ity of the modern world. He is the
typical person of no education who
has made up the generations of men
from the earliest times when man
kind emerged from the practically
brute condition into downing moral
consciousness That is the average
man to be considered when we ask
what may be the purpose of pain.
Has pain had Il purpose of any
kind for all those countless genera
tons of the uncultmcd past who
have constituted the solid mass of
munkindt Most assuredly it has had
purposc-many purposes. 1t has
compelled attention to injured Struc-
turCS; 1t has enforced roSt and sleep
by the distress or wCarinCSs; the
taking of food by the torturcs of
hunger, and, in short, has been the
general indicator and corrcctor for
man and beast in the exercise of
physical and physiological energy
of every kind. Not only SO, but the
mOraliSt and the religious teacher
will unite in insisting that the edu-
cational value of pain in the regions
of morals and religion has been and
continues to be incalculablc. So far
from agreeing with DIR. Weir Mitch
ell that pain has no purpose in the
world, wo affirm that ono of the
most obvious of all the facts con-
nected with pain is its definite and
incaculable value, as an indicator, a
corrcCtor. an educational force, alike
in the physical, the mental and the
moral spheres.
This being 50, an objector may
say, Why interfere with pain at all 7
This stand was actually taken by
many who held, at the time of the
introduction of anieSthetics, that to
use them was to fly i'll the face Of
the Almighty. But The Hospital
| points out that such a course would
bc Iuilt llloSltsll. II S;lSS:
THAT which il essential for one
period of human development may
not be essential for another. The
sharp physical stimuli, the clubs
and spears of the early savage, are
not needed by the later races of
men. In earlier times hunger, thirst,
| fear of wounds from enemies, the
most elementary OF all sensations,
We're needed to compel even the
| highest races of men to do the best
that was III them In our times
| there are millions who work in ODE
| dicnce to motives altogether differ
ont from the driving forces of hun
| ger, cold and physical fear. Ambi-
ton COnp"ls cXCrtion, duty, mere
| love of " DIRK. And 50 the element of
painfulnesS, being less and less need
ed, plays II less and less conspicuous
part AS II driving and correcting
| force in the world.
'NlN pain, or the possibility of
pain, ever be eliminated from the
experience of man, or killed, as
| ~ "Vi -"i'Ihcii HiiShI prefer 10
put it Most probably not SO long
as man Is endowed with his present
nervous system. But it is possible
nay, 1t Is quite eisy-to imagine "a
time when mankind i'll general shall
have reached such 4 stage of men
tai capacity and culture, such n wide
and mustcrful victory over nature,
such Il degree of physical vigor and
material prosperity, that pain shall
be very exceptional fact i'll his ex-
perience. This is the goal at which
a philosophical medical science must
at any rate aim with all the energy
of which it is capable. Literary
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