256 MAN --AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



by depressing the activity of the brain, keeps within 

 safe bounds the defensive activity of the kinetic system, 

 which if uncontrolled is prone to exceed the limit of 

 safety. Pain and muscular rigidity are prevented. 

 Metabolism is held practically at a standstill, so there 

 is little need of food ; peristalsis is inhibited, therefore 

 the intestines are immobile ; and phagocytosis has an 

 opportunity to overcome the infection. This treatment 

 does not replace but supplements surgical treatment. 



Painful Scar 



The phenomenon of painful scar, which in origin is 

 akin to many pathological as well as normal conditions, 

 may be explained by the fundamental principle of nerve 

 action that any strong traumatic or psychic stimulus 

 produces a change in conductivity somewhere in the 

 cerebral arc, the effect of which is to lower the thresh- 

 old of that arc. Thus, if a man has been held up at 

 the point of a pistol by a highwayman at a certain street 

 corner, for months afterward whenever he passes that 

 corner that circumstance will be vividly recalled, and 

 perhaps the whole train of activity phenomena follow- 

 ing upon the incident may be recapitulated. The effect 

 of traumatic stimuli is similar. The arc receiving strong 

 traumatic stimuli suffers a lowered threshold and from 

 that time on mere trifles become adequate stimuli. 

 Familiar examples of this are the sensitiveness of limbs 

 after fractures, and the painful stumps of amputated 

 limbs ; the apparent location of the pain being often not 

 in the remaining stump, but in the part amputated. 

 The lesion of a painful scar, therefore, is not at the site 

 of the wound, but in the brain. Now, if an operation 



