Endurance of Pain

Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
by George M. Gould, M.D., Walter L. Pyle, M.D.

(Page 16 of 44)

The question of the endurance of pain is, necessarily, one of comparison. There is little doubt that in the lower classes the sensation of pain is felt in a much less degree than in those of a highly intellectual and nervous temperament. If we eliminate the element of fear, which always predominates in the lower classes, the result of general hospital observation will show this distinction. There are many circumstances which have a marked influence on pain. Patriotism, enthusiasm, and general excitement, together with pride and natural obstinacy, prove the power of the mind over the body. The tortures endured by prisoners of war, religious martyrs and victims, exemplify the power of a strong will excited by deep emotion over the sensation of pain. The flagellants, persons who expiated their sins by voluntarily flaying themselves to the point of exhaustion, are modern examples of persons who in religious enthusiasm inflict pain on themselves.

In the ancient times in India the frenzied zealots struggled for positions from which they could throw themselves under the car of the Juggernaut, and their intense emotions turned the pains of their wounds into a pleasure. According to the reports of her Majesty's surgeons, there are at the present time in India native Brahmins who hang themselves on sharp hooks placed in the flesh between the scapulae, and remain in this position without the least visible show of pain. In a similar manner they pierce the lips and cheeks with long pins and bore the tongue with a hot iron. From a reliable source the authors have an account of a man in Northern India who as a means of self-inflicted penance held his arm aloft for the greater part of each day, bending the fingers tightly on the palms. After a considerable time the nails had grown or been forced through the palms of the hands, making their exit on the dorsal surfaces. There are many savage rites and ceremonies calling for the severe infliction of pain on the participants which have been described from time to time by travelers. The Aztecs willingly sacrificed even their lives in the worship of their Sun-god.

By means of singing and dancing the Aissaoui, in the Algerian town of Constantine, throw themselves into an ecstatic state in which their bodies seem to be insensible even to severe wounds. Hellwald says they run sharp-pointed irons into their heads, eyes, necks, and breasts without apparent pain or injury to themselves. Some observers claim they are rendered insensible to pain by self-induced hypnotism.

An account by Carpenter of the Algerian Aissaoui contained the following lucid description of the performances of these people: -

"The center of the court was given up to the Aissaoui. These were 12 hollow-checked men, some old and some young, who sat cross-legged in an irregular semicircle on the floor. Six of them had immense flat drums or tambours, which they presently began to beat noisily. In front of them a charcoal fire burned in a brazier, and into it one of them from time to time threw bits of some sort of incense, which gradually filled the place with a thin smoke and a mildly pungent odor.

"For a long time - it seemed a long time - this went on with nothing to break the silence but the rhythmical beat of the drums. Gradually, however, this had become quicker, and now grew wild and almost deafening, and the men began a monotonous chant which soon was increased to shouting. Suddenly one of the men threw himself with a howl to the ground, when he was seized by another, who stripped him of part of his garments and led him in front of the fire. Here, while the pounding of the drums and the shouts of the men became more and more frantic, he stood swaying his body backward and forward, almost touching the ground in his fearful contortions, and wagging his head until it seemed as if he must dislocate it from his shoulders. All at once he drew from the fire a red-hot bar of iron, and with a yell of horror, which sent a shiver down one's back, held it up before his eyes. More violently than ever he swayed his body and wagged his head, until he had worked himself up to a climax of excitement, when he passed the glowing iron several times over the palm of each hand and then licked it repeatedly with his tongue.

He next took a burning coal from the fire, and, placing it between his teeth, fanned it by his breath into a white heat. He ended his part of the performance by treading on red-hot coals scattered on the floor after which he resumed his place with the rest. Then the next performer with a yell as before, suddenly sprang to his feet and began again the same frantic contortions, in the midst of which he snatched from the fire an iron rod with a ball on one end, and after winding one of his eyelids around it until the eyeball was completely exposed, he thrust its point in behind the eye, which was forced far out on his cheek. It was held there for a moment when it was withdrawn, the eye released, and then rubbed vigorously a few times with the balled end of the rod.

"The drums all the time had been beaten lustily, and the men had kept up their chant, which still went unceasingly on. Again a man sprang to his feet and went through the same horrid motions. This time the performer took from the fire a sharp nail and, with a piece of the sandy limestone common to this region, proceeded with a series of blood-curdling howls to hammer it down into the top of his head, where it presently stuck upright, while he tottered dizzily around until it was pulled out with apparent effort and with a hollow snap by one of the other men.

"The performance had now fairly begun, and, with short intervals and always in the same manner, the frenzied contortions first, another ate up a glass lamp-chimney, which he first broke in pieces in his hands and then crunched loudly with his teeth. He then produced from a tin box a live scorpion, which ran across the floor with tail erect, and was then allowed to attach itself to the back of his hand and his face, and was finally taken into his mouth, where it hung suspended from the inside of his cheek and was finally chewed and swallowed. A sword was next produced, and after the usual preliminaries it was drawn by the same man who had just given the scorpion such unusual opportunities several times back and forth across his throat and neck, apparently deeply imbedded in the flesh. Not content with this, he bared his body at his waist, and while one man held the sword, edge upward, by the hilt and another by the point, about which a turban had been wrapped, he first stood upon it with his bare feet and then balanced himself across it on his naked stomach, while still another of the performers stood upon his back, whither he had sprung without any attempt to mollify the violence of the action. With more yells and genuflections, another now drew from the fire several iron skewers, some of which he thrust into the inner side of his cheeks and others into his throat at the larynx, where they were left for a while to hang.