716 Dynamic Theory. 



affairs, our friendships, our bank account, and it would logically follow 

 that these things constitute our "mental" part. But if it be meant 

 that the body suffers in consequence of bodily ills, and the mind in con- 

 sequence of external ills, it is untrue, since the sensations from both 

 sources are generated in the same brain. The popular distinction of 

 bodily and mental in this connection, then, is incorrect, misleading and 

 unfounded in fact. 



All upbuilding of cerebral organs is not pleasurable. When the brain 

 cells are sluggish and are differentiated only by repeated assaults of the 

 invading stimuli, the sensation developed is one of effort, and such sen- 

 sation is an uneasy and constrained one. Neither is the renewal of 

 worn-out tissue, the rebuilding or upbuilding of muscle, &c. , any more 

 than negatively pleasurable. The most of it takes place during sleep, 

 and the more passive and insensible we are the better it goes forward. 

 Our enjoyments come from action, and action, whether confined exclu- 

 sively to the brain or accompanied by muscular movement, is accom- 

 panied by wear and waste of the parts, and consequently can not last 

 long at a time in any one direction. On the other hand, neither is an 

 ''abatement of the vital functions" always accompanied with pain. 

 Some diseases of the kidnej^s, heart and lungs, undermine the constitu- 

 tion and reduce the vital force without pain. Consumptives usually 

 keep up their courage to the last moment. It is conjectured that in 

 some cases this painlessness may be due to a poisoning or deadening of 

 the function of the nerves of sensation by the disease in the parts af- 

 fected, in some such way as the nerves of motion may be poisoned by 

 curare, nicotine and conine. In some cases the progress of the disease 

 is so slow that the slight sensibility which might at first exist, becomes 

 dulled by the gradual adaptation of the patient to it. The loss 

 of blood is not accompanied with pain, doubtless because it involves but 

 little injury to nerves, and because it soon withdraws from the brain 

 cells the power of sensation by abstracting their nourishment and re- 

 ducing them to insensibility. Death often occurs from asphyxia by coal 

 gas and fire damp without any warning of a painful kind. Instances 

 have occurred in which persons in a state of syncope have inhaled am- 

 moniacal vapors which produced violent inflammation. If the patients 

 had been in their ordinary state, the irritation which these vapors gen- 

 erally produce would have warned them and caused their avoidance. 

 People often expose themselves to the influence of cold, malaria, and 

 zymotic infection without any painful warning, and if the} r avoid these 

 perils they do it through some other stimulation than a sense of pain. 



A remarkable case is cited by Carpenter of a tramp who one evening 

 came to a lime kiln which had been filled with stone ready for burning, 

 but had not been lighted. He laid down upon the platform at the top 



