DEPENDENCE OF SENSATION OF PAIN ON CUTANEOUS IMPULSES

Abstract

Many experiments have been made to test the sensitiveness to painful stimuli of internal organs and membranes. 1 These experiments were made with the cutaneous nerve endings functioning and did not rule out the possibility that pain is referred—that it may be due to afferent impulses coming from the skin to an irritable zone in the spinal centers. Mackenzie 1a suggested that stimuli from an inflamed viscus set up an irritable focus in the cord and that the sensation of pain is referred to the peripheral distribution of the cerebrospinal nerves that traverse that focus. Head 1b described in great detail zones of referred pain associated with visceral disease. Morley 1c denied the existence of such a viscerocutaneous reflex and ascribed visceral pain to peritoneal irritation. Weiss and Davis 2 reported that they had obtained temporary relief from visceral pain by anesthetizing localized areas of skin to which the pain