p. 205 | Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 13.

Health and Temperance.

The Logic of Pain.

THE advantages of pain are most obvious in case of injury. When a joint is sprained, the pain caused by movement in it compels the rest which is essential to repair. If there were no pain produced by motion, the parts would almost certainly be exercised, to the detriment and to the delay of the reparative processes. So too in broken bones, the agony caused by motion is such that a fixed position is maintained for weeks, with the result that the part, being kept in absolute rest, is thus permitted to recover as speedily as may be. The pale, bloodless creature who is the prey of facial neuralgia, or that pain in the intercostal nerves which is felt below the heart (and commonly referred to that organ), is compelled thereby to desist from exhausting efforts, and to seek in rest and good food that relief which is so imperatively demanded by the pain. Here pain is the protector of the system generally, and its expressive though inarticulate tones attract attention to the requirements of the organism. If not attended to, the call becomes more urgent in its reiterated and sharper demands.

Headaches often alone can secure that rest which the brain requires; and the headache of exhaustion is as marked as is that pain at the top of the head which tells us that the brain is insufficiently supplied with blood. The headache after a day of exertion, excitement, or enjoyment, so commonly met with in ladies, secures a day of complete quiet, during which the system regains its tone.—Sel.