The Origin and Nature of the Emotions; Miscellaneous Papers

by George Washington Crile

Like the other phenomena of life, pain was undoubtedly evolved for a particular purpose—surely for the good of the individual. Like fear and worry, it frequently is injurious. What then may be its purpose?

We postulate that pain is a result of contact ceptor stimulation for the purpose of securing protective muscular activity. This postulate applies to all kinds of pain, whatever their cause— whether physical injury, pyogenic infection, the obstruction of hollow viscera, childbirth, etc.

All forms of pain are associated with muscular action, and as in every other stimulation of the ceptors, each kind of pain is specific to the causative stimuli. The child puts his hand in the fire; physical injury pain results, and the appropriate muscular response is elicited. If pressure is prolonged on some parts of the body, anemia of the parts may result, with a corresponding discomfort or pain, requiring muscular action for relief. When the rays of the sun strike directly upon the retina, light pain causes an immediate protective action, so too in the evacuation of the intestine and the urinary bladder as normal acts, and in overcoming obstruction of these tracts, discomfort or pain compel the required muscular actions. This view of pain as a stimulation to motor action explains why only certain types of infection are associated with pain; namely, those types in which the infection may be spread by muscular action or those in which the fixation of parts by continued muscular rigidity is an advantage. As a further remarkable proof of the marvelous adaptation of the body mechanism to meet varying environmental conditions, we find that just as nociceptors have been implanted in only those parts of the body which have been subject to nocuous contacts, so a type of infection which causes muscular action in one part of the body may cause none when it attacks another.

This postulate gives us the key to the pain-muscular phenomena of peritonitis, pleurisy, cystitis, cholecystitis, etc., as well as to the pain-muscular phenomena in obstructions of the hollow viscera. If pain is a part of a muscular response and occurs only as a result of contact ceptor stimulation by physical injury, infection, anemia, or obstruction, we may well inquire which part of the nerve mechanism is the site of the phenomenon of pain. Is it the nerve-ending, the nerve-trunk, or the brain? That is, is pain associated with the physical contact with the nerve-ending, or with the physical act of transmission along the nerve-trunk, or with the change of brain-cell substance by means of which the motor-producing energy is released?

We postulate that the pain is associated with the discharge of energy from the brain-cells. If this be true, then if every nociceptor in the body were equally stimulated in such a manner that all the stimuli should reach the brain-cells simultaneously, then the cells would find themselves in equilibrium and no motor act would be performed. But if all the pain nerve ceptors but one were equally stimulated, and this one more strongly stimulated than the rest, then this one would gain possession of the final common path—would cause a muscular action and the sensation of pain.

It is well known that when a greater pain or stimulus is thrown into competition with a lesser one, the lesser is submerged. Of this fact the school-boy makes use when he initiates the novice into the mystery of the painless pulling of hair. The simultaneous but severe application of the boot to the blindfolded victim takes complete but exclusive possession of the final common path and the hair is painlessly plucked as a result of the triumph of the boot stimulus over the pull on the hair in the struggle for the final common path.

Persons who have survived a sudden, complete exposure to superheated steam, or whose bodies have been enwrapped in flame, testify that they have felt no pain. As this absence of pain may be due to the fact that the emotion of fear gained the final common path, to the exclusion of all other stimuli, we are trying by experimentation to discover the effects of simultaneous painful stimulation of all parts of the body. The data already in hand, and the experiments now in progress, in which anesthetized animals are subjected to powerful stimuli applied to certain parts of the body only, or simultaneously to all parts of the body, lead us to believe that in the former case the brain-cells become stimulated or hyperchromatic, while in the latter case no brain-cell changes occur. We believe that our experiments will prove that an equal and simultaneous stimulation of all parts of the body leaves the brain-cells in a state of equilibrium. Our theory of pain will then be well sustained, not only by common observation, but by experimental proof, and so the mechanistic view will be found in complete harmony with another important reaction.

We have stated that when a number of contact stimuli act simultaneously, the strongest stimulus will gain possession of the final common path— the path of action. When, however, stimuli of the distance ceptors compete with stimuli of the contact ceptors, the contact-ceptor stimuli often secure the common path, not because they are stronger or more important, but because they are immediate and urgent. In many instances, however, the distance-ceptor stimuli are strong, have the advantage of a lowered threshold, and therefore compete successfully with the immediate and present stimuli of the contact ceptors. In such cases we have the interesting phenomenon of physical injury without resultant pain or muscular response. The distance-ceptor stimuli which may thus triumph over even powerful contact-ceptor stimuli are those causing strong emotions—as great anger in fighting; great fear in a battle; intense sexual excitement. Dr. Livingstone has testified to his complete unconsciousness to pain during his struggle with a lion; although he was torn by teeth and claws, his fear overcame all other impressions. By frequently repeated stimulation the Dervish secures a low threshold to the emotions caused by the thought of God or the devil, and his emotional excitement is increased by the presence of others under the same stimulation; emotion, therefore, secures the final common path and he is unconscious of pain when he lashes, cuts, and bruises his body. The phenomena of hysteria may be explained on this basis, as may the unconsciousness of passing events in a person in the midst of a great and overwhelming grief. By constant practice the student may secure the final common path for such impressions as are derived from the stimuli offered by the subject of his study, and so he will be oblivious of his surroundings. Concentration is but another name for a final common path secured by the repetition and summation of certain stimuli.

If our premises are sustained, then we can recognize in man no will, no ego, no possibility for spontaneous action, for every action must be a response to the stimuli of contact or distance ceptors, or to their recall through associative memory. Memory is awakened by symbols which represent any of the objects or forces associated with the act recalled. Spoken and written words, pictures, sounds, may stimulate the brain patterns formed by previous stimulation of the distance ceptors; while touch, pain, temperature, pressure, may recall previous contact-ceptor stimuli. Memory depends in part upon the adequacy of the symbol, and in part upon the state of the threshold. If one has ever been attacked by a snake, the threshold to any symbol which could recall that attack would be low; the later recall of anything associated with the bite or its results would produce in memory a recapitulation of the whole scene, while even harmless snakes would thereafter be greeted with a shudder. On the other hand, in a child the threshold is low to the desire for the possession of any new and strange object; in a child, therefore, to whom a snake is merely an unusual and fascinating object, there is aroused only curiosity and the desire for the possession of a new plaything.

If we are to attribute to man the possession of a governing attribute not possessed by other parts of the animal creation, where are we to draw the boundary line, and say "here the ego— the will—the reason—emerges"? What attribute, after all, has man which in its ultimate analysis is not possessed by the lowest animals or by the vegetable creation, even? From the ameba, on through all the stages of animal existence, every action is but a response to an adequate stimulus; and as a result of adequate stimuli each step has been taken toward the higher and more intricate mechanisms which play the higher and more intricate parts in the great scheme of nature.