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parts of the brain which govern sensation be destroyed, or if by the 

 administration of an anaesthetic, such as chloroform, the functions 

 of the brain be suspended, pain ceases to be felt. When a finger 

 is cut, the pain is not really felt at the injured part, but is perceived 

 as such in the brain, for a communication is sent from the irritated 

 cut nerve, up through the nerves of the arm to the spinal cord, 

 thence to the sensory part of the brain ; here the sensation of pain 

 is perceived, but is referred to the finger. If the irritation of the 

 divided nerve be kept up by the retention of any foreign body, such 

 as dirt, the pain will be continuous. Many of you know by ex- 

 perience that as long as a fly or a grain of dust remains under the 

 eyelid, the pain does not cease. But there is another kind of pain, 

 not physical, but moral or mental pain, often harder to bear than 

 the former ; these two kinds of pain, although often overlapping 

 each other in their origin and progress, yet must more or less be con- 

 sidered apart ; and as I have already stated, it is the physical side 

 of pain which will mainly occupy us this evening. 



In considering the severity of pain, the individual must be taken 

 into account ; physical pain has much to do with physical sensi- 

 bility ; where the latter is not highly developed, and the intellectual 

 capacity low down in the mental scale, pain is as a rule much less 

 felt. I have seen labourers put up with an amount of suffering 

 which to a highly educated and refined person would be unbearable, 

 and where mental suffering is concerned, the diiference is often 

 more marked ; and so, although education and pleasant surround- 

 ings may bring many pleasures, they nevertheless increase the 

 capacities for suffering. 



A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette on Malingering, stated some 

 years ago " that he had known one (a malingerer) stumble under a 

 cart wheel, and thus secure a broken leg -the more welcome since 

 the fracture was compound, and promised to keep him many 

 months under the surgeon's hands." He goes on to say, " I have 

 known others thrust their hands and feet into machinery, and at 

 times even to lay open a muscle, or lop off a finger or toe. Not long 

 ago I saw a farm labourer of middle age, whom four months of a 

 hospital had enamoured of that kind of life, and who had just 

 cut off a finger with a hedging bill a few days after his restoration 

 to hberty and work, doing this in order that he might return to the 

 hospital. When the mind is much engaged, or in a state of excite- 

 ment, injuries may be almost if not quite painless ; many men have 

 gone through a battle and have only discovered their wounds at 

 the end. When we cut ourselves, although it may be deeply, the 

 pain is rarely a noticeable feature, because of the quickness of the 

 process and the unpreparedness of the mind. I once attended a 

 boy who fell from the top of a house in Longford Terrace into the 



