356 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



as has been or will continue to be the art of preventing and relieving 

 pain that is distinctively physical. 



But first, what is " mental pain," or " psychalgia," as it may 

 better be called? What evidence have we that aside from some form 

 of physical pain there is ever any such thing as " psyclialgia," that is, 

 something which can be more familiarly and supposably more clearly 

 noted and described than heretofore, and consequently more satis- 

 factorily dealt with? If present how are we to differentiate it, and 

 thus be reasonably sure that we are not dealing with mere phantoms— 

 something that is not fixable or definable, and not to be rationally 

 handled in any way? 



Probably no one can truthfully say that there is such a thing as 

 mental pain who has himself never suffered from it, and at times when 

 physical pain or distress has not been present to such a degree as to 

 obscure or complicate self-observation, beyond differentiation. For, no 

 matter how dire the psychalgia in the latter case, the suspicion must 

 arise that it was but merely a quale — quality — of the physical con- 

 dition, and so not susceptible of being considered as a distinctive kind 

 of suffering at all. To be this and to be worthy of consideration as 

 a true psychalgia, it ought at least to be capable of being consciously 

 remembered as an experience by itself, dissociated somewhat clearly 

 from every physical condition save that of general well-being, and in 

 most cases, at least, of being referred back to certain causes, which, 

 whether true or not, are consciously regarded by the sufferer as having 

 been of distinctively mental origin. 



By way of attempt at elucidation of this requirement, let us consider 

 instances where the psychalgia, instead of being an exclusive experience,, 

 is apparently the direct consequence of personal shock and stress, 

 and where primarily there are various wide-spread physical changes, 

 especially in the sphere of metabolism, all of which must be included 

 in any truly scientific consideration of the subject. To the sufferer 

 himself these physical changes are of little importance, except as they 

 are explained to him as possible sources of his mental distress. To 

 him, it is his mind that is distressed, not his bodv: for the time beinsv 

 all his regard is monopolized by his psychalgia, and if not told other- 

 wise, he may not even suspect that anything but his mind is or ever 

 will be affected by the causal event. If he be introspective and at the 

 same time analytic enough, he will chiefly or exclusively note that his 

 mental horizon has become painfully restricted; that his ideation is 

 being painfully overworked along some certain narrow lines : that his 

 emotions are all suffused with pain, even paradoxically when little 

 or in nowise disturbed ; and that his outlook upon the future is simply 

 too painful to be invited or prolonged. In fact, it becomes evident 

 that all the pain which the sufferer experiences is referred to his mind 



