MYSTERY OF PAIN.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 286, 2 May 1929, Page 2

MYSTERY OF PAIN.

IMPORTANCE IN MAKING A DIAGNOSIS. “The symptom of pain, which in el'nical medicine and surgery is so important an aid in making a diagnosis, is peculiar In that it cannot be directly observed or measured,” says, the British Medical Journal. “Most people knew what toothache is 1 ke. but who can tell whether his cwn particular toothache is more or less severe than that of another. It may be argued that the reaction to pain is a trustworthy Index of its quality or of its intensity, but one may well question whether the person whoi makes the greatest fuss is necessarily suffering the most.” As to the common assumption that pain serves as a danger signel, the Journal remarks: “When the epidermis is penetrated, and the true skin outraged, the cutaneous termlantions of nerves flash out the message of danger, and the consequent reflex muscular action results in the withdrawal and protect.cn of the part from further injury. Here the giological value of painful stimuli to the organism is obvious, but only too often pain, even excruiatlng and persistent pain, appears to subserve no such protective funct'on. Interesting in this connection is the pain from the exposed pulp of a carious tooth. What useful purpose does it serve ? It may, and does, stimulate the sufferer to seek the dentist’s help, but this expedient was probably not available to Neanderthal man, and was certainly not to the orang-outang. Yet both these creatures suffered from dentalcaries. Again, what use is a pa : n in the shoulder blade. to a man with a disordered liver? How does the agony of biliary colic help the sufferer to overcome the obstruction in his gallduct? How, indeed, was prehistoric man helped by referred pains to obta n rel.ef from the various morbid states associated with them? The teleogist might perhaps argue that he association of pain In a given skin area with disease of an internal organ having the same segemental nerve supply is a protective provision, designed to enable the surgeon to arrive at a correct diagnosis. But of what use were such pains in the days before Head demonstrated the connection between them and disease in deeper organs?”