Physiological aesthetics / by Grant Allen.

  • Grant Allen
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiological aesthetics / by Grant Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the drawing of a tooth. To pinch off a small piece of skin (below the epidermis) or to pull out a hair occasions a con- siderable smart. In short, to tear or cut away from the body any one of its constituent tissues is.one most conspi- cuous cause of Pain. Again, merely to sever the tissues without actual dismem- berment is also painful. Take as instances wounds, cuts, pricks, and scratches. To pare or break the nails below the quick, to pull open a sore, to have the face or lips chapped, are other similar cases. Disruption of tissue is therefore a second and closely-allied cause of Pain. Disintegration of any part of the body owing to causes not so directly mechanical is accompanied by the same sub- jective states : as in burning off a finger, having the feet frozen so that the joints drop off, destroying the skin and muscles with a corrosive acid, and so forth. Like mental manifestations occur when the tissues are bruised, crushed, or broken. Of this we have everyday experience in blo.ws, falls, kicks, and rubs. Here we can easily see that there is still disintegration, though of smaller tissues. This is proved by the concentration of blood in the area of disruption which causes the flesh to appear black and blue,” and shows that the delicate epithelium of the capillaries has been broken and an extravasation has taken place; by the weal, raised after a smart tap from a whip; and by the blisters which follow friction, and testify to the separation of the skin from the subjacent tissues by allowing an effusion to collect in the interstice. All these cases are produced by the irtterference of ex-
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