GENERAL SENSATIONS. 389 



whose uses is the expulsion of the foetus; this is also 

 accompanied with violent pains, characterized always to 

 a greater or less degree by energetic contractions of the 

 smooth muscular fibres. The expulsion is followed by a 

 sentiment of a difficulty overcome, as is that of micturition 

 and defecation, etc. The neck of the womb does not even 

 partake, in spite of numerous nerves, of the sensibility to 

 pain ; it can only be the point of departure for certain reflex 

 phenomena : thus it can be cauterized or incised without pro- 

 voking any sensations ; cancer of this organ can become pain- 

 ful only by the development of what we have designated as 

 sympathetic or reflex sensations, and, better still, as asso- 

 ciated sensations (p. 57) which radiate towards the sacrum, 

 the thighs, the abdominal walls, etc. (lumbar and sacral 

 plexus). 



In order to complete the study of general sensations, we 

 must here say a few words as to the sensibility of the various 

 tissues connected with the surfaces, or placed between them 

 in the deeper portion of the organism. As might be sup- 

 posed, the muscular, connective, bony, and glandular tissues, 

 have either very little sensibility, or none at all. The muscle 

 may be cut or burned, without producing any very painful 

 sensation, while, if greatly distended, or strongly contracted, 

 it becomes the seat of peculiar vague and painful sensations, 

 such as cramps, which are generally experienced chiefly in 

 the smooth muscles (intestinal, uterine, vesical, colic, etc.). 

 In cases of inflammation this tissue becomes extremely 

 sensitive, as do also the bones, the tendons, the articulating 

 ligaments, and the tissue of the glands themselves. This 

 pathological sensibility is, no doubt, caused by the fact that 

 inflammation, which has a tendency to destroy the organs 

 (especially the muscle), also attacks the nerves contained in 

 them; and because the swelling which nearly always ac- 

 companies this pathological process, distends the nerves of 

 the tissue itself, and those of the adjacent tissues, and thus 

 occasions their hyperesthesia : this is the reason that the 

 glands are extremely sensitive to compression, and very pain- 

 ful when swollen. 



The muscle appears to possess a peculiar sensibility which 

 forms a sort of transition from general to special sensations; 

 this is what is called the sense of contraction, the muscular 

 sense, by which we know that we have executed movements. 

 What the mechanism and the organs of this sensation may 

 be, is not yet decided (see, farther on, Pacinian corpuscles 



