Painless Death. 
307 
1879-] 
and intelligence of the injury must be transmitted to this 
organ through a certain set of nerves, adting as telegraph 
wires, before we become conscious of pain. This trans- 
mission or telegraphing from the seat of injury to the brain 
requires time, longer or shorter, according to the distance 
of the injured part from the brain, and according to 
the susceptibility of the particular nervous system ope- 
rated upon. 
Helmholtz, by experiments, determined the velocity of 
this nervous transmission in the frog to be a little over 
85 feet per second ; in the whale, about 100 feet per second ; 
and in man, at an average of 200 feet per second. If, for 
instance, a whale 50 feet long were wounded in the tail, it 
would not be conscious of the injury till half a second after 
the wound had been inflicted. But this is not the only in- 
gredient in the delay. It is believed that to every adt of 
consciousness belongs a determinate molecular arrangement 
of the brain, so that, besides the interval of transmission, 
a still further time is necessary for the brain to put itself in 
order for its molecules to take up the motions or positions 
necessary to the completion of consciousness. Helmholtz 
considers that one-tenth of a second is required for this 
purpose. Thus, in the case of the whale, there is, first, 
half a second consumed in the transmission of the intelli- 
gence through the sensor nerves to the brain, about one- 
tenth of a second consumed by the brain in completing the 
arrangement necessary to consciousness, and, if the velocity 
of transmission from the brain to the motor nerves be the 
same as that through the sensor, about half a second more 
is consumed in sending the message to the tail to defend 
itself. Therefore one second and one-tenth would elapse 
before an impression made upon its caudal nerves could be 
responded to by a whale 50 feet long. 
If we regard as correct the calculations representing the 
average velocity of transmission in the human nerves, and 
if we estimate the distance from the origin of the filaments 
in the brain to their termination in the foot as 5 feet, the 
time required, in case some one steps on your favourite corn, 
for the news to be telegraphed to the brain, for the brain to 
prepare a message, and to telegraph the same to the muscles 
of the leg to draw the foot away, would be about one- 
twentieth of a second. Now, it is quite conceivable that an 
injury might be inflicted which would render the nerves unfit 
to be conductors of sensation, and if this occurred, no matter 
how severe the injury might be, there would be no con- 
sciousness of it. Or it might happen that the power of the 
