CHAPTER IX.
HIS PAPER ON TIC DOLOREUX.
"Quis talia fando
Temperet a lachrymis."
Virgil.
Perhaps, of all known torments, there is none that can be compared, either in intensity or duration, with that curious disease which has been called Tic Doloreux. Like the term Neuralgia, it is merely a hard word to express a violent pain in a nerve. Conventionally, the term neuralgia, or nerve-pain, is generally used to express a case where the suffering is of a more or less diffused character. The term "tic" is more usually applied in cases where the seat of pain is found in some superficial nerve. Neither term has much claim to the character of scientific nomenclature; they are merely equivalent to saying that we know very little of the matter. This obscurity, however, may be soon lessened, if not entirely cleared, by any one who will go to work in the way suggested by Mr. Abernethy's principles, and in which, to a certain point, they will conduct him. He must, however, recollect that the pain, though a most distressing symptom, is still a symptom, and not the disease which gives rise to it.