THE SENSATIONS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 245 



that full attention should be given at once to nervous pains and 

 the means of counteracting them. First, every pernicious influ- 

 ence which may directly exert an irritating influence upon the 

 nerves should be removed ; then the remote causes which mani- 

 fest themselves by nervous pains should be dealt with. 



The removal of a decayed tooth may cure a face-pain at once 

 and forever ; taking away a body pressing upon the hip-nerve 

 may be a complete remedy for a sciatica. Like ends may be 

 reached in other cases by a regulated way of living which will 

 lead to improved digestion and a more healthy circulation. The 

 simple operation of an aperient, as I have had occasion to observe 

 at Marienbad, has sometimes at once alleviated nervous pains 

 that had defied every sort of treatment for years. Yet we do not 

 always succeed in elucidating the causes of such troubles and 

 removing them. 



In such case the task of the physician, seeking to alleviate the 

 pain, is to reduce the sensitiveness of the nerves. Sometimes he 

 seeks to attain that object by applying counter-irritants on the 

 skin along the course of the nerve or in its neighborhood. Of 

 such are mustard-plasters, Spanish flies, burning, and dry cupping. 

 Electrical treatment constitutes one of the most important appli- 

 cations for curing sick nerves. With alleviation of the pain, 

 weakening of the attacks, and quieting of the nervous excite- 

 ment, it also often induces improvement and cure in desperate 

 cases. The same is also frequently accomplished by the use of 

 warm baths, such as may be had at many natural thermal springs, 

 sulphur, and other medical baths. Sometimes, when the pains 

 are refractory to the application of heat, cold baths, washing and 

 rubbing are of effectual service ; and the cold-water method not 

 rarely achieves real triumphs in cases of long standing, particu- 

 larly when the neuralgia is the result of a cold, and it is desired, 

 by hardening the organs of the skin, to make them less sensitive 

 to changes of weather. Local applications of cold in the shape of 

 ice-bags, cold poultices, etc., afford effective means of reducing 

 the supersensitiveness of a nerve. Sometimes drugs are neces- 

 sary which have the property when introduced into the blood of 

 increasing or reducing the power of feeling. These remedies are 

 applied outwardly or inwardly, and many of them have been 

 known from ancient times. Narcotics taken inwardly, like opium 

 and morphine, should be used with great care, and reluctantly. 

 Beneficial and even indispensable as may be the pain-stilling and 

 quieting operation of these drugs, it must not be forgotten that 

 the human organization easily accustoms itself to them, so that 

 ever more frequent application and larger doses of them are de- 

 manded, and, at last, bodily disease and mental disorder are 

 brought on through the general poisoning they occasion. The 



