106 



wisdom of Solomon ; for, speaking of the effects of wine, 

 he makes the drunkard remark, — ' they have stricken me, and 

 I was not sick ; they have beaten me, and I felt it not/ — 

 Proverbs xxiii. 35. 



" I have, myself, seen a drunken man with a compound 

 fracture and dislocation of the wrist, use the hand as freely 

 as if it were quite sound. 



" When the mental powers are suspended by the inhalation 

 of chloroform, equal insensibility to pain is manifested, al- 

 though it is by no means necessary that there shall be complete 

 stupor to ensure the anaesthetic effect. Patients will be sensi- 

 ble to what is passing around them ; and may even feel any 

 operation that is going on, and yet not hare any pain at- 

 tending it. 



" In strong mental emotion — when the mind is intently fixed 

 upon some object or other — severe wounds may be inflicted 

 without any pain being felt. Minor instances of this fact 

 occur daily in our own experience ; and we hear, from time to 

 time, of others of a more formidable character. Gun-shot 

 wounds have been received in the heat of action without being 

 known ; and fingers have been crushed or torn off in a hurly- 

 burly without their loss being discovered, till the person had 

 emerged from the state of excitement in which he had previ- 

 ously been. This tendency has not been passed over in silence 

 by our immortal bard, as King Lear is made to say — 



" ' Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm 



Invades us to the skin — so 'tis to thee; 



But, where the greater malady is fixed, 



The lesser scarce is felt. When the mind 's free 



The body 'a delicate. The tempest in my mind 



Doth from my senses take all feeling else — 



Save what beats here.' 



"Again, the mind is insensible to pain during sleep. 

 During profound repose, the agonies of tic-doloureux, or of 

 tooth-ache, of a tearing cancer, or an aching head, are all 

 absent. 



