The daily Alaskan., 1917-10-20
IN BATTLE
Trained Soldiers Are Wholly In-
 different to Danger.
FACE DEATH WITHOUT FEAR.

Not, and They May Be Severely
 Wounded Without Feeling Pain.
 Unique Analogy From Railroad Life.
 The thought of not coming out of a battle alive rarely enters the mind of a seasoned soldier, and he goes into the conflict fired only with the sense of a performed with perhaps Il vague hope of promotion for q decd of bravery or | daring. Very few people are afraid of | q natural death, but a violent death Is | different. and yet Hundreds of thou sands of men have gone to meet practl- cally certain destruction without giv- ing sign of terror
 Concerning the absolute indifference of the trained soldier to death in the midst of battle and the reasons there | for, Dr. MacKenna employs q unique and graphic illustration from the rail road world.
 Let US imagine he says, that the brain, the organ that links up the body with the sources of thought and action, Is a railway terminus Into which run lines from all parts of the country There are lines to and from the eyes. the ears, the feet, the hands ana every muscle in the body,
 Tn the heat of battle trains loaded | with messages are racing on the down line to every muscle. On well or dercd railway system certain trains have priority, while others are held back until congestion is relieved and some of the tracks are cleared.
 "A wise train dispatcher will see that slow freight train does not get in the way and block the progress of q pas sengcr express, and the mind acting in | this role takes care that no train laden with fear finds Its way out of the l terminus to throw the other traffic into confusion. There arc no tracks to spare for such cargo, tho whale railway system is occupied with the supply of more urgent necessities.
 By a similar observation one can eX- plain the frequently repeated statement that in the heat of battle soldier may sustain a formidable wound and feel no pain whatever and even be unaware 1 that he has been hit
 "Thc injured limb or organ dispatches an express train along the line of some sensory nerve to the railway terminus in the brain, but on drawing near the terminus the signals are found to be against 1t, and it cannot force its way through the press of traffic into the station. II Is therefore sidetraCkcd.
 "But just as an ordinary train will try to call the attention of the signal man by blowing its whistle when the signal Is against It, so sensation of pain may succeed in calling the attGn- tion of the brain to its existence by sending on a message not of pain, but of heaviness or pressure.
 This may have the effect of opening path for the whole train to run through, and the wounded man begins to discover that he has been hit or hurt. But in most cases a long inter- val elapses between the infliction of the wound and the realization of the soldier that he has been wounded.
 q have been informed hy a soldier who had a large p;ecc blown out of his thigh that he was quite unaware of his injury for several minutes. His NttCn- was attracted by hearing his foot 's0uelch' every time Ee moved it. On looking down he saw that his boot was full of blood then NlHlost Immediately he felt dull ache in the thigh, follow ed very shortly by sensation of acute pain.
 "In this case. to return to our illus tration, the messages of pain from the wounded thigh had EeCn he'd up by con gestiOn of traffic near the terminus We may imagine that the impeled train tried to call the attention of the signal man, but failed to do so until mes sage sent from the suburban station of sight, not far from the terminus, got through and informed the station mas ter that a very important train from a remote part of the country was being held up. The levers were then aU once drawn, and the sensation of pain pass ed on to the SeuSOrium." =, St. Louis Post-Disiatvh.