Numbness

“ It seems, also, that the continued descent of vibrations, from the brain, and spinal marrow, into the limbs, and external parts, agitates them so much, as to render them unfit for receiving sensation and motion, in the same manner as continued friction of the head, when newly shaved, or shaking the hand, occasion a kind of numbness in the head and hand respectively. For a disorder raised in the motory nerves and muscular fibres, analogous to numbness in the sensory nerves, and sentient papillæ, must produce ineptitude to motion. ”

“ The consciousness of the lost limb varies from acute pain, pricking, itching, burning, cramp, uneasiness, numbness, etc., in the toes, heel, or other place, to feelings which are hardly perceptible, or which become perceptible only after a good deal of "thinking." The feeling is not due to the condition of the stump, for in both painful and healthy stumps it may be either present or absent. Where it is distinct both the lost foot or hand and the stump are felt simultaneously, each in its own place. ”

“ Consequently, induction of the suggestion that the left leg is numb, if it reaches the right hemisphere unchallenged and is referred to the appropriate area of the sensory cortex, will result in an electrical reaction being generated that will induce the feeling of numbness, Similarly, the suggestion that the person is experiencing a general feeling of happiness and well being would be referred to the appropriate pleasure centers located in the lower cerebral portion or in the cortex of the right hemisphere, thereby inducing the suggested feeling of euphoria. ”

“ If we think of the point of our big toe on the right foot we find, though we were totally unaware of it a moment before, that a certain pressure is being exerted in it. If we continue to think of it queer feelings develop in it. We may get a sense of numbness that proceeds up along the tendons that lead to it. ”

“ A numbness had crept over his will till it had become almost incapable of decision. The mere thought of vigorous action—action towards escape—began to terrify him. All the currents of his life had turned inwards upon himself, striving to bring to the surface something that lay buried almost beyond reach, determined to force his recognition of something he had long forgotten—forgotten years upon years, centuries almost ago. It seemed as though a window deep within his being would presently open and reveal an entirely new world, yet somehow a world that was not unfamiliar. ”

“ The numbness of the arms is probably owing more frequently to the increased action of the pectoral muscles in respiration, whence they are less at liberty to perform other offices, than to the connexion of nerves mentioned in Sect. ”

“ Numbness of the right index- and middle-finger. Pain in the left wrist-joint. Deep-seated pain under the right breast. Pain at the right knee. 65. Deep-seated pain in the calves. Pain at the forepart of the left leg, for four days. Laming pain of the legs and thighs for several days. Deep-seated pain, first in the left, then in the right thigh. Numbness of the left leg and heel. 70. Shooting stitch in the right knee.
ARRANGEMENT ACCORDING TO HAHNEMANN.
Mental, Moral, Head: 1. Vertigo with fainting. Dizziness. Pain all over the head. Headache, at the vertex and at times at the occiput. 5. ”

“ If they had painful sensations referred to it, the conviction of its existence continued unaltered for long periods; but where no pain was felt in it, then, by degrees, the sense of having that limb faded away entirely. I think we may to some extent explain this. The knowledge we possess of any part is made up of the numberless impressions from without which affect its sensitive surfaces, and which are transmitted through its nerves to the spinal nerve-cells, and through them, again, to the brain. ”

“ The answer is, that it is nothing more nor less than the antecedent mental image of the movement to be executed. We constantly receive nerve-impulses by the sensory nerves which have their source in the skin, joints, tendons, and muscles; these impulses fuse into an aggregate sensation which informs us about the varying positions of our limbs. Like other sensations, this leaves behind it a mental image, and it is this mental image, brought up as the last result of the play of association, which immediately precedes the external movement and constitutes the "feeling of innervation." ”

“ And what is very remarkable is, that, in speaking of these movements which arise by a sensation being as it were reflected from the central apparatus into a limb—as, for example, when one's finger is pricked and the arm is suddenly drawn up, the motion of the sensory nerve travels to the spine and is again reflected down to the muscles of the arm—Descartes uses the very phrase that, we at this present time employ. ”

“ Another set of nerves proceed inwards, from the skin to the central part of the nervous system, and by their peculiar action give rise to various sensations, according as different influences or stimulations are brought to bear upon the skin at, or in the vicinity of, their peripheral extremities. Under ordinary circumstances, different stimulations of the surface of the body convey an influence inwards, which produces sensation, and give rise to an outwardly proceeding influence to the muscles, resulting in definite and appropriate motions. ”

“ The NERVES that are spread over every part of the sensitive layer of the true skin, proceed from the spinal cord. As a proof of the great number of nervous filaments in the skin, no part of this tissue can be punctured with a fine needle without transfixing a nerve, and inducing pain. In some parts of the system, however, the nerves are more abundant than in others; where the sense of feeling is most acute, we find the greatest number of nerves, and those of the largest size. ”

“ This movement of the whole limb is what we think of when the joint's nerves are excited in that way; and its place is so much more important than the joint's place that our sense of the latter is taken up, so to speak, into our perception of the former, and the sensation of the movement seems to diffuse itself into our very fingers and toes. But by abstracting our attention from the suggestion of the entire extremity we can perfectly well perceive the same sensation as if it were concentrated in one spot. ”

“ Continuing his experiments, he proved that there is a nervous circle connecting the muscles with the brain, that one nerve is not capable of transmitting what is called the nervous spirits in two different directions at one instant of time, but that for the regulation of muscular action there is a nerve of sensibility, to convey a sensation of the condition of the muscles to the sensorium, as well as a nerve of motion for conveying the mandate of the will to the muscles. ”

“ When, therefore, the mind wills to move a flexor muscle of the arm, the gray matter sends out the stimulus through the nerves to the cells of each individual fibre of that muscle, and they contract. When this is done, the nerve of sensation reports it to the brain and mind. If the mind desires to return the arm to its former position, then follows the willing, and consequent stimulus sent through the nerves to the corresponding muscle; its cells contract, and the limb is restored. ”

“ If we assume that pain exists for the purpose of stimulating muscular reactions, we may well inquire what part of the nervous are is the site of the sensation of pain—the nerve-endings, the trunk, or the brain? ”

“ Nerves, surprisingly minute tubes, derived from the Brain, which gliding into the Muscles, set them on work, depress the power of sensation through the body, or returning upon any impression from without, give all needful intelligence to the soul. ”

“ And observe further, that when the surface over which the finger is drawn is not a foreign body, but some part of the subject’s body, these muscular sensations, and the continuous tactual sensation joined with them, are accompanied by a series of tactual sensations proceeding from that part of the skin over which the finger is drawn. Thus, then, when the infant moves its finger along the surface of its body from A to Z, there are simultaneously impressed upon consciousness three sets of sensations—the varying series of sensations proceeding from the muscles in action ”

“ An occasional twinge in leg, arm, or finger, or a tenderness of the soles of the feet, and perhaps giddiness in walking, may remind him of what he has gone through and warn him that he is not quite well yet. ”

“ But we must go farther, and ask whether the skin-nerve is ever motor, and whether the muscle-nerve is ever sensory? To answer this, we must first settle one or two points of physiology and anatomy. A nerve is sensory because it stimulates the Sensibility of its Centre, and not because its termination is in the skin. It is not the nerve which is sensitive, bat the centre. ”

“ And again, the law that change in the state of a nerve produces sensation, is more general than the law that contact with an object produces sensation; since the sensation equally follows the change in the nerve when not produced by contact with an object, but by some other cause; as in the well-known case, when a person who has lost a limb feels the same sensation which he has been accustomed to call a pain in the limb. ”

“ If the nerve in a limb of a living animal be laid bare, and irritated by pinching, galvanizing, or the like, two results follow, namely: the animal experiences a sensation, that of pain, in the part to which the nerve is distributed, and the limb is thrown into convulsive action. When a nerve in a human body is cut by accident, or destroyed by disease, the part in which it ramifies loses both sensation and power of motion ”

“ Thus, a sensation which embraces within its range the whole spiritual being agitates in the same measure the whole framework of the organic body,—heart, veins and blood, muscles and nerves, all, from those mighty nerves that give to the heart its living impulse of motion down to the tiny and unimportant nerves by which hairs are attached to the skin, share equally its influence. ”

“ If, then, minute specific nerves of pain exist throughout the body and are gathered up into various nerve trunks, the fact that most sensory nerves do give some pain can no longer seem remarkable, or be counted as evidence that pain is an inseparable or general attribute of the other senses. ”

“ The sensations are real to them. You know that, when a man has suffered amputation of his leg, he will tell you at first that he feels his toes, that he feels his limb; and, perhaps to the end of his life, every now and then he will have this feeling of the limb moving, or of a pain in it ”

“ If any one who may not just like an actual dissection, will look at one of Quain's 'Plates of the Bones, Muscles, and Nerves of the Human Body,' he will see that, growing as it were out of the walls of the stomach, there are, in our wonderful human machine, great bunches of nerves, called, by the medicals, the 'great ganglionic system,' and he will observe that these nerves are in intimate and inseparable connection with the spinal cord, and the brain. ”

“ Nerve-pains describe the length of the nerve. Such localizations as those of vertical, frontal, or occipital headache of intracranial origin force us to conclude that parts which are neighbors, whether inner or outer, may possess by mere virtue of that fact a common peculiarity of feeling, a respect in which their sensations agree, and which serves as a token of their proximity. These local colorings are, moreover, so strong that we cognize them as the same, throughout all contrasts of sensible quality in the accompanying perception. Cold and heat are wide as the poles asunder ”

“ If the sensibility of these nerves is heightened, or possibly if the sensitiveness of the central terminations of the nerves is raised, then we may have sensations to which we give the name of pain. In like manner the skin is endowed with afferent nerves, distinct from those ministering to touch and to temperature, along which nervous impulses are constantly flowing. ”

“ Lying prostrate, with flaccid limbs, with head sunk back on the limp neck, motionless and still, at first sight, it seems quite dead and gone. But a gentle heaving of the body, a rise and a fall every few seconds, tells you that it still breathes; and a finger placed on the chest may feel the quick throb of the still beating heart. ”

“ There is nothing so plentifully, and nothing more curiously interwoven with every other substance, as the nerves; and so amazingly quick is their sensation, that the very instant a single nerve, even the smallest and remotest in the system, is affected, the soul, or the common sensorium, is sensible of the identical part so affected. ”

“ Every time we want to take off a pain, or calm an excitation, we will succeed by presenting the palm of the right hand to the diseased part, if that part is on the left side or the back of the body, or by presenting the palm of the left hand, if it is on the right side or the forepart of the body. ”

“ The body is but an instrument by which sensations of a peculiar character reach the mind. Those who have had arms amputated, have experienced pain seemingly in the fingers at times in consequence of the exposure and irritation of the nerves which go to the hand. ”

“ It has no skull, nor brain, nor eyes, nor jaws, nor heart, nor anything in particular—just transparent muscle, spinal cord, artery gills, stomach and ovaries, with a fringe of feelers about the slit we call the mouth. ”

“ A greater proportion of those painful muscular actions called spasms, are the effect of sensations; though Ideas, also, appear to be concerned in the production of those which become frequent. One very remarkable case, which is named the Locked Jaw, is often the result of a pain produced by an external wound. ”