MODIFICATIONS OF FEELING. 227 



marked sensation of cold ; the idea of shivering causes an im- 

 pression which resembles it, and the fear of tickling is suffi- 

 cient to produce its effects. 



Feeling is modified by various influences; cold, or san- 

 guineous congestion resulting from violent exercise, diminishes 

 or suppresses for a time the sensibility of the skin ; certain 

 occupations, by thickening the epidermis, destroy the delicacy 

 of the touch; and lastly, age diminishes the cutaneous per- 

 spiration, the epidermis dries up, and the skin no longer has 

 the suppleness and elasticity which renders the touch so 

 delicate in youth. 



Tactile sensibility is often intensified by disease, and some- 

 times modified, suspended, or destroyed. We see this in 

 trances which supervene after, or are provoked under, the in- 

 fluence of certain nervous affections. Charlatanism, even in 

 our day, avails itself of this phenomenon, which we confine 

 ourselves to simply mentioning here. 



