The age-herald., 1897-12-29
The Iron Market. Birmingham, Dec. 2S.-The following are the latest quotations on iron:
THE SrChcI UT rhYolCAl PAIN.
Is There Separate System of Nerves for Con
 veying That Sensation?
From the Literary Digest.

From the Literary Digest.
 It has lately been maintained by some French physiologists that the feeling of pain is a special sensation, apart from those of touch, sight, etc., and transmitted When a boy falls and hurts his head, ac- When boy falls and hurst his head, ac- cording to this view, he has two sensations, one of contact with the ground, trans mitted to the brain by the ordinary nerves, and one of pain due to the injury received, transmitted by the pain nerves. These sensations may not even reach the brain at the same time; in fact, the pain usually gets there later. In the Revue Scientifique M. Phillipe Tissie discusses this theory and concludes that it does not correspond to the facts, which are to be explained rather by what goes on in the brain itself, where there is probably spe- oial pain center" that is not stimulated except by an excessive sensation Says M Tissie:
 Under this title CHas Pain Its Special Nerves?) M. Fredericq has recently ad- dressed a letter to M Richet, in which he maintains the existence of special nerves of pain. M. Fredericq bases his theory on O) the retardation of the sensation of pain compared to that of touch; @ the suppression of this sensation in certain cases; (3) the difference of sensibility to pain and touch, as in portions of the body that are scarcely sensitive at all to cold but are very much so to the pain of shock; and (D the similarity of painful sensation, whatever may be it's cause, pro- vided that the injured cutaneous surface is1 of a given extent and the exciting cause of, a given intensity. The stroke of whip sears the skin as a red hot iron would!
 eve think with M. Richet and with M. Lombroso, who accepts the theory that pain Is the result of strong eXcitation of the senses, that such reasons are not suf- ficient and, what Is more, that the theory of special nerves explains nothing, and ready complicated problem of the psycho- physiology of pain. On the other hand, M Fredericq fails to take into account the psychic function of the brain
 "Here are two facts from my experi- ence:
 "1. One winter morning, on rising, my mind being taken up with an absorbing process of thought, I proceeded, according to my habit, to take my daily cold water bath. But at the first contact of the sponge, full of water, was surprised; my thought was replaced in my mind by a succession of two different impressions, separated by relatively long interval one of touch and one of temperature.
 My consciousness thus aided in the clear separation of two impressions of diff ferent kinds. On the morrow morning fixed my attention, as soon as I got up, so that I might better analyze the sensa- tions felt on the first contact of the sponge with the skin, but I could not detect the separation of the two impressions as on the previous day, when the phenomenon had been produced automatically.
 'T repeated the same experiment several days in succession without result This seemed to me to be confirmatory of the