THEIR LIMITS AND THEIR FALLACIES. 315 



body may be made sensationless, as to touch, by a sufficient 

 dose of aconitine, tlie active principle of monkshood. It is 011 

 record in professional books, that certain persons who had dug 

 up and eaten the root of monkshood in mistake for horse- 

 radish became completely insensible to ordinary touch. 



The mind of these individuals was perfectly clear judg- 

 ment unclouded. It always is in these cases of poisoning. 

 They all died ; such a dose of monkshood as the complete 

 absence of touch implies being always fatal. As a physiologi- 

 cal demonstration of the power of aconite to abolish common 

 sensation, I have more than once seen the following : a rabbit 

 stuck all over with pins and needles without feeling pain. 

 Proof the animal, turned into a pincushion, ate sprigs of 

 parsley. This benumbing quality of aconite is of great value 

 in many cases, when physical pain cannot otherwise be alle- 

 viated. In tic-douloureux it is sovereign. I have never met 

 with a case of toothache that was not alleviated in five minutes 

 by the judicious application of aconite. 



If it be not ungrateful and almost irreverent to say so, 

 touch (common sensation) is the least elaborate, the most 

 vulgar of the five ; and yet, perhaps, of all the most reliable. 

 Eegarded as to its faculty of conveying external impressions, 

 it rarely deceives us. The conjuror can make nothing of this 

 faithful sense. Vision, hearing, he readily cheats ; in proof 

 of which the prestigiator and the ventriloquist. 



We often fancy tastes when there are no tastes ; smells 

 when there are no smells : but, even in the wildness of dream- 

 land, we rarely seem to feel an object. Why the words, Fve 

 seen it with my own eyes, have come to be such a guarantee of 

 truth, it is difficult to explain. Far more just would the ex- 

 pression be, * I've touched it with my own fingers.' 



As there would appear to be a certain alliance between 

 the faculties of touch and hearing, let us take hearing next. 

 This sense is ministered to through special organs, the ears ; 

 save perhaps in those apocryphal cases already noticed. The 



