Emotions

"Before any information about a noxious or tissue damaging stimulus can reach the brain, it has to be transmitted through the spinal cord (for the body) or the brainstem (for the head and neck). This transmission requires the growth of nerve fibres from the skin to the spinal cord or brainstem and then further growth of nerve fibres along the spinal cord or brainstem and into the brain. Staining of postmortem tissue reveals that nerve fibres grow into the fetal spinal cord from 8 weeks. These fibres, however, are specialised for the control of movement and some aspects of touching or prodding the body or positioning a limb. The growth of nerve fibres connecting nociceptive terminals to the spinal cord lags behind that of other sensory inputs in non-human mammals. Similar connections in the human are also likely to lag but the specific timings remain unknown. Preliminary studies have failed to demonstrate nerve fibres from nociceptive terminals in the fetal post-mortem spinal cord before 19 weeks."

"The exact timing of the first nociceptive reflex responses to more traumatic mechanical stimulation is not known but they are unlikely to occur before the second trimester, somewhat later than responses to touch. It is known that the fetus withdraws from a needle from about 18 weeks and also launches a stress response following needle puncture. This stress response includes the release of hormones and neurotransmitters dependent on activity in areas of the midbrain. These findings confirm that signals about tissue damage are transmitted from the spinal cord and brainstem to the midbrain from at least 18 weeks."

"The word ‘pain’ is used in different ways. The most frequent use, especially with respect to subjects that cannot communicate verbally, is in describing the behavioural response to noxious stimulation. However, if we accept this use, we are presented with the difficulty of distinguishing between the responses of simple versus complex organisms. Fruit fly larvae, for example, have been demonstrated to bend and roll away when approached with a naked flame but most people would agree that larvae do not feel pain in the way that we do. Ruling out the responses of larvae and similarly simple organisms as indicating pain is possible if we suggest that responses must include more than mere reflex responses to be labelled as a pain response. When someone reaches out and accidentally touches something very hot, there is an immediate tendency to drop the object. That reaction is entirely regulated by a simple loop of sensory neurons speaking to motor neurons in the spinal cord. Typically, the person will drop the object before there is any conscious appreciation of pain. The action of dropping the object indicates the presence of something noxious but does not necessarily indicate the presence of pain."

"One fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish."

"A man who only becomes a husband brings pain to his parents, and a person who only becomes a son brings pain to his wife."

"Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole? For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one."

"Now, all of this raises important questions about what one means by "evidence,"or "medical information,"because the ultra-sound image is presented as a document testifying that the fetus is "alive," is "human like you or me,"and "senses pain.""The Silent Scream has been sharply confronted on this level by panels of opposing medical experts, New York Times editorials, and a Planned Parenthood film. These show, for example,that at twelve weeks the fetus has no cerebral cortex to receive pain impulses;that no "scream"is possible without air in the lungs;that fetal movements at this stage are reflexive and without purpose;that the image of rapid frantic movement was undoubtedly caused by speeding up the film (cameratricks);that the size of the image we see on the screen, along with the model that is continually displayed in front of the screen, is nearly twice the size of a normal twelve-week fetus, and so forth."

"Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others' pain, And perish in our own."

"Most pain researchers adopt a definition of pain that emphasises the sensory, cognitive and affective response to a noxious event. This understanding of pain is supported by the International Association of Pain (IASP) which defines pain as ‘an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage,or described in terms of such damage...pain is always subjective. Each individual learns the application of the word through experiences related to injury in early life’.1 By this definition, pain does not have primacy over subjectivity, existing before and in addition to subjectivity, but is experienced through subjectivity. It suggests that pain is a part of knowledge and requires the existence of a conceptual apparatus that can marshal all its dimensions into a coherent experience. Although there is considerable merit in the IASP definition of pain, it does tend towards a view of pain as being a constituent part of higher cognitive function. There is disquiet in denying a rawer, more primitive, form of pain or suffering that the fetus, neonate and many animals might experience.2–4 One possible solution is to recognise that the newborn infant might be said to feel pain, whereas only the older infant can experience that they are in pain and explicitly share their condition with others as an acknowledged fact of being.5 Currently there is no immediately obvious way of resolving these arguments empirically. It is possible, however, to argue that even a raw sense of pain involves more than reflex activity and will, therefore, require the higher regions of the cortex to be connected and functional. The age when this minimum requirement is fulfilled is explored in the rest of this chapter."

"Does an anaesthetic or the pain relief I receive affect the baby? If you are given a general anaesthetic for a diagnostic procedure, the substances used in this will cross the placenta to the baby. The effect will happen more slowly to the baby and will not cause any harm to the baby. If you are given other forms of pain relief, there is evidence that they will cross the placenta to the baby, but the doses are not large enough to cause any harm."

"It [true love] is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind In body and in soul can bind."

"Never elated while one man's oppress'd; Never dejected while another's blessed."

"Somewhere or other there must surely be The face not seen, the voice not heard, The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me! Made answer to my word."

"If thou art something bring thy soul and interchange with mine."

"Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow For other's good, and melt at other's woe."

"Bowels of compassion."

"The man who melts With social sympathy, though not allied, Is of more worth than a thousand kinsmen."

"We pine for kindred natures To mingle with our own."

"World-wide apart, and yet akin, As showing that the human heart Beats on forever as of old."

"For I no sooner in my heart divin'd, My heart, which by a secret harmony Still moves with thine, joined in connection sweet."

"In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee."

"Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one."

"Jobling, there are chords in the human mind."

"The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness."

"But there is one thing which we are responsible for, and that is for our sympathies, for the manner in which we regard it, and for the tone in which we discuss it. What shall we say, then, with regard to it? On which side shall we stand?"

"I ask Thee for a thankful love, Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes, And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize."

"There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more—there is action. […] The noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look—it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help."

"Pity and need Make all flesh kin. There is no caste in blood."

"Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider like, we feel the tenderest touch."

"The first time I dropped bombs on a target over there, I watched those things go down because we could do it in B-17s. I watched them go down. Then I watched those black puffs of smoke and fires in some instances. I said to myself, “People are getting killed down there that don’t have any business getting killed. Those are not soldiers."Well, then I had a thought that I had engendered and encountered for the first time in Cincinnati when I was going to medical school. I lived with a doctor. He would tell me about previous doctors, some that had been classmates of his, who were drug salesmen. [...] because they could not practice medicine due to the fact that they had too much sympathy for their patients. They assumed the symptoms of the patients and it destroyed their ability to render medical necessities. I thought, you know, I am just like that if I get to thinking about some innocent person getting hit on the ground. I am supposed to be a bomber pilot and destroy a target. I won’t be worth anything if I do that."

"Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it, so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting His praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul."

"The capacity of sorrow belongs to our grandeur, and the loftiest of our race are those who have had the profoundest sympathies, because they have had the profoundest sorrows."

"He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all."

"The craving for sympathy is the common boundary-line between joy and sorrow."

"We often do more good by our sympathy than by our labors. A man may lose position, influence, wealth, and even health, and yet live on in comfort, if with resignation; but there is one thing without which life becomes a burden—that is human sympathy."

"There is in souls a sympathy with sounds."

"Sympathy beyond the confines of man, that is, humanity to the lower animals, seems to be one of the latest moral acquisitions."

"Tact is the result of refined sympathy."

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy..."

"Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength not my weakness."

"Whatever the day brings, part of it always belongs to sympathy, for the well-being of men and states is ever changing. Thus observation and sympathy are the movements by which we make every moment of time our own—through which we properly live. When their pulse beats faintly, leisure becomes a burden; the bolder spirits then open the door of time and seek eternity."

"If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?"

"For thou hast given me in this beauteous face, A world of earthly blessings to my soul, If sympathy of love unite our thoughts."

"A sympathy in choice."

"Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them."

"The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face."

"Suffering is my gain; I bow To my Heavenly Father's will, And receive it hushed and still; Suffering is my worship now."

"Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys — sickness destroying the flavor of them all — did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him — this is all."

"In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation."

"Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children; He chastens them in love; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise."