A man cannot think deeply and exert his utmost muscular force.
As Hippocrates long ago observed, if two pains are felt
at the same time, the severer one dulls the other.
Martyrs, in the ecstasy of their religious fervour have often,
as it would appear, been insensible to the most horrid tortures.
Sailors who are going to be flogged sometimes take a piece of lead
into their mouths, in order to bite it with their utmost force,
and thus to bear the pain. Parturient women prepare to exert
their muscles to the utmost in order to relieve their sufferings.
We thus see that the undirected radiation of nerve-force from
the nerve-cells which are first affected--the long-continued habit
of attempting by struggling to escape from the cause of suffering--
and the consciousness that voluntary muscular exertion relieves pain,
have all probably concurred in giving a tendency to the most violent,
almost convulsive, movements under extreme suffering; and such movements,
including those of the vocal organs, are universally recognized
as highly expressive of this condition.
As the mere touching of a sensitive nerve reacts in a direct manner
on the heart, severe pain will obviously react on it in like manner,
but far more energetically.
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