It will be seen that the evidence regarding measur- able sexual differences in the tactile sense in men and women points at present to no very definite conclusion. Professor Lombroso considers that women are less sensitive than men, but brings forward no clearly comparable series of men and women. Professor Jastrow's more limited but perfectly comparable series shows women decidedly superior to men, but his measurements were confined to the palmar surface of the hand, and, as the investigator himself points out, they simply indicate that the hands of women are comparatively free from rough usage. In the same way, Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky found that, on testing the hands, prostitutes have a keener sensibility than honest working women. That the palms of 1 " Studies from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the University of Wisconsin," American Journal of Psychology y April 1893.
Google THE SENSES. 119 women are less sensitive than those of men leads to no more wide-reaching conclusion than a demonstra- tion that the rough knees of a housemaid are less sensitive than those of a footman. It is possible that in a comparison of hands equally free from rough usage, the sensibility of men may be found measurably greater than that of women, but this cannot be taken for granted. The question of the relative tactile sensibility of men and women is one of considerable interest, as it has sometimes happened that on its assumed greater or less delicacy significant general conclusions have been drawn. We need careful and extended series of observations, and it is necessary that these should be conducted on parts of the body that are fairly comparable in the two sexes, for instance, on the tongue, the forearm, or the calf of the leg.
It must, however, be borne in mind that tactile sensibility is more variable and more educable than we are always inclined to assume. Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky's investigations into the senses of normal women, criminal women, and prostitutes in Russia showed that women who live in towns have keener senses than women who live in the country; thus while criminals as a rule have more obtuse sensory perceptions than ordinary persons, she found that town-dwelling thieves had a much keener sense of taste than honest peasant women who had never lived in a town. 1 Dr. Felkin has made some very interesting observations bearing on the same point. He tested 26 parts of the body in 150 negroes and 30 Soudanese Arabs, and found that the power of discrimination, as against 1.1 mm. on tip of tongue in Europeans, was 3 mm. in the negroes and 2.6 mm. in the Soudanese; but after two negro boys had been educated in Europe for four years, tactile sensibility 1 " Sur les Organes des sens chez les Femmes Criminelles," Actes du Troisttme Congris International d* Anthropologic Criminelle, Brussels, Google 120 MAN AND WOMAN.
became more acute and they could discriminate at 2 mm. 1 Again, Professor Krohn has found that the skin can be progressively educated to localise sen- sations of pressure more and more correctly. At first in the different individual series, the subject could generally localise but two out of seven, but after a number of sittings (130) he had no trouble in local- ising five out of seven. This improvement from practice is very rapid. 2 SENSIBILITY TO PAIN.
Investigations made at the request of Professor Lombroso by De Filippi and Turin, with the electric algometer, snowed that while there was no very great difference in general sensibility there was a markedly greater sensibility to pain in the men, the figures for men and women of the people being 69.23 for the former, 53.16 for the latter, the difference being less but still marked in young persons; there were two women who while showing normal general sensibility were completely insensible to pain, although there was no evidence of disease; these, however, were surely either very exceptional or very hysterical persons. The small number of observations made by the same investigators with Du Bois-Reymond's electric apparatus showed, on the other hand, rather greater sensibility on the part of women, both among the lower and educated classes. Among prostitutes and among criminals sensibility to pain as well as general sensibility is markedly defective. 8 Professor Jastrow made some attempts to measure sensitiveness 1 Felkin, " Differences of Sensibility between Europeans and Negroes," British Ass. Report \ 1889.
2 W. O. Krohn, "An Experimental Study of Simultaneous Stimu* lations of the Sense of Touch," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, March 1893.
3 Lombroso, "Tatto e Tipo Degenerativo in Donne Normali, Criminali e Alienate," Archivio di Psichiatria % 1891, Fasc. I -I I.
Google THE SENSES. 121 to pain in male and female students, using a light hammer, pivoted at a point 200 mm. from its iron head, and allowing it to fall on the tip of the forefinger of each hand; both finger and hand were supported. The minimum number of degrees through which the hammer must fall in order to cause a painful sen- sation was found to be surprisingly constant, and, as might be expected, it was much smaller in women. The figures for the right hand were, in men, 33.9, in women, 16.6; for the left hand, men 22.7, women, 14.8. It is noteworthy that as regards the left hand men and women are more nearly equal, but that there is a very considerable disproportion as regards the right hand, apparently indicating the rough usage undergone by the right hand. Professor Lombroso came to the conclusion that the right hand is more sensitive.
It is obvious that these results lead to no definite conclusion, although they will be interesting for com- parison as new series of observations are forthcoming. The question of the relative sensitiveness to pain of men and women has usually been settled by the consideration of data of a more general character. There are numerous facts and statements tending to show that "wolmen are less affected by pain and suffering than men. Professor Sergi considers that tHetect that women suffer less is shown by their greater resignation, as it can scarcely be claimed that women possess greater strength of will; and he points out that men who nurse their relatives rapidly lose flesh and health, while women, even mothers, often retain their good humour and appetite. 1 Mr. Williams, a professional tattooer, stated to a representative of the Pall Mall Gazette, "Ladies have much more courage and bear pain much better than men, though I must tell you 1 Sergi, "Sensibility Femmenile," VAnomalo, Oct. 1891. Sergi states that he has examined emotional sensibility rather than organic sensibility.
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that tattooing, if scientifically done, is all but painless. However, men are much more fidgety than women, who keep perfectly quiet" Bouchet, an observant old French writer of the sixteenth century, remarks that women endure cold better than men, and do not need so much clothing. 1 Some light is perhaps thrown on the matter when we turn to the very closely allied question of disvulnerability in the two sexes. Disvulner- ability is the term, first used by Professor Benedikt, to signify the quick repair of wounds and comparative freedom from ill consequences after severe injuries. Among the lower animals there is a high degree of disvulnerability. Among savages it is every- where well marked, and is associated with a measur- ably high degree of insensibility. The Zanzibaris, for instance, have a wonderful power of repair of wounds, 2 and Dr. Reyburn, from an analysis of the cases of over 400,000 negro patients treated by the medical department of the American Bureau of Refugees, from 1865 to 1872, found that the negro has greater reparative power after injuries and other surgical operations than the white man. Among different races there appears to be a varying degree of resistance to pain which does not seem necessarily related to the evolutionary scale of the race. Piro- goff, the distinguished surgeon, observed that Jews, Mussulmans, and Slavs bore pain well Sir William McCormac observed that the Turks exhibit total indifference to suffering. 8 The cheerfulness of children when patients has often attracted attention. 4 Malgaigne, the French surgeon, first showed con- clusively in 1842 that children from the age of 5 to 15 bear amputation better than adults, a a T. H. Parke, Experiences in Equatorial Africa, p. 435. 8 McCormac, Heath's Dictionary of Surgery, 4 For instance, see Dr. A. B. Judson in his presidential address to the American Orthopaedic Association at Washington in 1891.
Google THE SENSES. 1 23 result which has since been confirmed, and is now generally recognised; we may accept Professor Horsley's statement that "as far as operative measures go, there is no doubt whatever that the nervous system of the child is less influenced by fifumatism than that of the adult" Malgaigne also showed that women bear amputation better than men, a conclusion which has also been confirmed. Legouest has united the figures of Malgaigne of Paris, Laurie of Glasgow, Fenwick for Newcastle, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. In a total of 1244 cases of amputation in men there were 441 deaths, £e. 3545 per cent In a total of 284 cases of amputation in women there were 83 deaths, ue. 29.29 per cent; that is to say, a considerable differ- ence in favour of women. 1 According to one table the difference in favour of women is as much as 16.2 per cent It may be argued that the difference is due to. the more serious character of the accidents to which men are liable; but the difference is marked not only in amputations due to injuries but also in those occasioned by disease. It will probably be found that we here have a sexual difference which is closely connected with the well-recognised resistance to death shown not only at birth by female infants, but in old age in the greater longevity of women.
In a paper by Lombroso on " La Sensibility de la Femme," read at the International Congress of Experimental Psychology held in London (and published in an abridged and translated form in the Proceedings of the Congress, pp. 41-44), various arguments are brought forward in favour of the greater sensory obtuseness of women and their greater disvulnerability. The paper is not rich in precise details, and is somewhat open to criticism. The following passage may be quoted: — " Billroth experimented on women when attempting a certain operation (excision of the pylorus) for the first time, judging that they were less sensitive and therefore more disvulnerable — *>., better able to resist pain. Carle assured me women would let themselves be operated upon almost as though their flesh were 1 Art "Amputations," Diet, ency. dts Sciences Midicales.
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an alien thing. Giordano told me that even the pains 01 childbirth caused relatively little suffering to women, in spite of their apprehensions. Dr^Martini, one of the most distinguished dentists of Turin, has informed me of the amazement he has felt at seeing women endure more easily and courageously than men every kind of dental operation. Mela, too, has found that men will, under such circumstances, faint oftener than women. Proverbs of different peoples confirm the fact of women's cap- ability of resisting pain — e.g., " a woman never dies, has seven skins, has a soul and a little soul," etc. The same arguments are more fully stated and developed in Lombroso e Ferrero, La Donna Delinquente, 1893, pp. 58-66. See also Dr. H. Campbell's Nervous Organisation, etc., pp. 54-55, 118. Dr. Campbell points out how well women bear both loss of blood and loss of sleep, and remarks, " Nothing has surprised me more than the extraordinary resignation, almost it would seem apathy, with which many women endure physical suffering, and face impending death."
With regard to the statement attributed to ProfessorJ2illr2$h> I may add that I have been in communication witn~Ur7Eiselsberg, until recently the celebrated Viennese surgeon's chief assistant, and he writes confirming Professor Lombroso's statement: " Professor Billroth really thinks that for all operations of the abdomen women have more resistance, so that operation on them gives more chance of recovery." This opinion, from so high an authority, although unaccompanied by statistics, is entitled to attention, and it harmonises with the recorded results of amputation. It must be added that the sexual difference cannot be great, and that many eminent surgeons (Sir James Paget, for example) have not observed it.
It is not possible at present to formulate any very decided conclusions as to the relative sensitiveness of men and women to physical and moral pain. It seems probable that, notwithstanding their greater nervous irritability in most respects, \yomen are better able than men t o resistp ain and discomfort The social life of woman, her subordination to parents and husband and children, the duty of submission and concealment imposed upon her, have all tended to foster tolerance of pain. It is reasonable to suppose that women would not have so generally fallen into this rdle unless there were some organic basis of diminished sensi- bility to suffering which made it more natural and less arduous than it would be in man. But whether Google THE SENSES.
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there is any such diminished sensitiveness to pain in women as compared to men, the evidence does not at present enable us definitely to decide. We shall approach this problem from another point of view when we come to consider the affectability of women.
SMELL.
Sexual differences in keenness of smell were first accurately measured by Professors E. H. S. Bailey and E. L. Nichols. In the Proceedings of the Kansas Academy of Sciences for 1884 there is a paper by Mr. Bailey showing that with regard to many common odours delicacy of perception is much more marked among men than among women. I have not been able to see this paper; but in Nature, 25th November 1886, there is a letter from Professors Nichols and Bailey, briefly summarising their methods and results. They made use of the following substances: — (1) Oil of cloves, (2) nitrite of amyl, (3) extract of garlic, (4) bromine, (5) cyanide of potassium. A series of solutions was prepared, of which each member was half the strength of the preceding one. They were extended in successive dilutions till it was impossible to detect the substances by their odours. The bottles were then placed at random for the subject to classify by the sense of smell. In the first series of experi- ments there were 17 males and 17 females. The results may be expressed in the following table, which gives the amount of each substance detected: — Average of males.
Oil of cloves.
1 part in of water.
Nitrite of amyl.
1 in Garlic.
1 in Bromine. 1 in Cyanide.
1 in Average of females.
1 in of water.
1 in 1 in 1 in 1 in Google MAN AND WOMAN.
A second series of experiments was subsequently made on 27 males and 21 females, with the following results: — Average of males.
Prussic acid.
1 part in of water.
Oil of lemon.
1 in Oil of wintergreen.
1 in Average of females.
1 in of water.
1 in 1 in Three of the male observers were able to detect one part of prussic acid in about 2,000,000 parts of water — two of these persons, however, were engaged in occupations favouring the cultivation of this sense — when the most careful chemical tests failed to reveal the acid. On the other hand, some of both sexes could not detect prussic acid even in solutions of overpowering strength. " Our average shows," the investigators conclude, "that the sense of smell is much more delicate in the case of male than of female observers."
From an interesting letter (14th September 1892) from Professor Nichols (now of Cornell University), in reply to various queries which I addressed to him, I quote the follow- ing passage: — " It should be said, in considering our work, that neither Professor Bailey nor I were in any degree experts in the physiology of the senses. His interest in the matter lay in its bearings upon chemistry, mine in its relation to physics. The points of sexual difference met with were not looked for in planning our experiments. They were, almost without exception, just the opposite of our preconceived notions concerning such differences. The number of individuals tested was probably insufficient to enable one to draw very broad conclusions. We deemed the differences worthy of record, however; to be given such weight as their limited character would justify. As to the class of individuals tested: they were almost entirely students of the University of Kansas, a co-educational institution of fair grade, which at that time contained nearly equal numbers of young men and women. Ages chiefly 17 to 25 Google THE SENSES. \2J years. The only distinction which one could draw, other than sexual, was that which arises from the fact that boys, in an institution offering a considerable choice of studies, select the sciences rather than letters^ gaining thereby some training of the special senses. The few cases in which we deemed it certain that training entered, were those of students of pharmacy who had been given much practice in the recognition of drugs, etc., by use of the unaided senses, touch, taste, smell, etc. We did not think male observers perceptibly affected by indulgence in tobacco or alcohol. The use of either was the exception, and attempts to take account of the influence of such habits by averaging smokers and non-smokers, etc., seemed to show no effect. To sum up then: — " The class dealt with was in one way a special one (college students).
" There was no attempt to select within that class; nor to exclude smokers, etc.
" The experiments were not conducted with a view to sexual differences.
" The male and female observers were not the same in the various experiments, although the groups tested had many members in common."
Dr. Ottolenghi, in the Laboratory of Forensic Medicine of Turin University, made a series of observations on 30 normal men and 20 normal women (of the middle and lower classes), none of whom took tobacco or presented any disorder of the nasal passages; at the same time he experimented on 80 criminal men and women. He constructed a kind of osmometer with twelve aqueous solutions of essence of clove, ranging in strength from ruiwu to T ^j in other respects he followed the methods of Nichols and Bailey. Essence of clove was selected as being a very odorous substance, very fractionable, and well known. He found that olfactory acuteness was slightly less in women than in men. 1 So far as it goes, the evidence furnished by careful scientific investigation clearly indicates that the sense of smell in men possesses greater keenness than in women. Cases of excessively acute keenness of smell 1 "L'Olfatto nei Criminali," Archivio di Psichiatria, 1888, vol. ix. t Fasc. 5.
Google 128 MAN AND WOMAN.
certainly occur riot very rarely in women, perhaps much more frequently than in men, but they usually occur in young hysterical women. The fact that women are not very sensitive to odours is often brought home to men by the perfumes of oppressive strength which women frequently use. 1 As a French writer points out to women who thus abuse perfumes, to masculine nostrils they may be nearly twice as perfumed as to their own. It is interesting to note that the abuse of perfumes by women is not confined to modern times. In the Pcedagogus, that delightful manual for the use of semi-pagan Christians, I remark that St Clement of Alexandria supplies an indication that in his day masculine nostrils were more sen- sitive than feminine. In permitting a limited use of perfumes, he says — " Let a few unguents be selected by women, such as will not be overpowering to a husband." 2 TASTE.
TASTE.
Men have a monopoly of the higher walks of culinary art; women are not employed in such occupations- as tea-tasting, which require specially delicate discrimination; they are rarely good con- noisseurs of wine; and while gourtnandes are common, the more refined expression gourmet does not even possess a feminine form. On these grounds it has sometimes been asserted that the sense of taste in women, like the sense of smell, is not so highly developed as in men. This conclusion has not, however, been justified by accurate investigation.
The sexual differences in the sense of taste, like those in the sense of smell, seem to have been first accurately measured by Professors Bailey and 1 I do not wish to imply that the love of strong perfumes is itself proof of deficient sensitiveness with regard to smell. It must also be remembered that the use of perfumes has often been inculcated in women as a method of covering more natural odoufs.
8 Bk. ii., chap. 8, "On the Uses of Ointments and Crowns."
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Nichols. 1 They made a series of strong solutions for the different classes of sapid substances: for bitter, quinine was selected (1 part in 10,000 parts of water); for sweet, cane-sugar (1 part in 10 of water); for acid, sulphuric acid (1 in 100); for alkaline, sodium bicar- bonate ( 1 in 10); for saline, common salt (1 in 100). By successive dilutions each of these solutions became the strongest of a series of solutions, each member of which was one-half the strength of the preceding one The bottles containing the solutions were then placed without regard to order, and the person experimented upon was requested to taste them and separate them into their proper groups. In each series the last solution was so dilute as to be unrecognisable. The persons examined numbered 128, of whom 82 were male and 46 female; the experimenters' average results are expressed in the following general table:— Quinine Sugar Acid Alkali Salt Male Observers DETECTED One part in 392,000 Female Observers DETECTED One part in 456,000 From these results the experimenters concluded that the sense of taste is more delicate in women than in men. This is true in the case of all substances excepting salt. "As we had found a similar differ- ence," the writers remark, "in an earlier and inde- pendent set of experiments, which agreed in every essential particular with the results of the present test, we do not regard it as an accidental difference, or as likely to disappear in more extended investiga- 1 "On the Delicacy of the Sense of Taste," by Dr. E. H. S. Bailey and Dr. E. L. Nichols. A brief abstract of the paper is given in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 1887. TTie paper is printed in full in Science, 1888, p. 145.
9 Google 130 MAN AND WOMAN.
tions." They noted that wide individual differences presented themselves (as much as in the ratio of one to three), and that these variations were not explicable as results of education, men with great experience in handling drugs being surpassed by women without any such training. In a few cases the ability to detect a dilute sweet was accompanied by an inability to detect dilute bitter. Professor Nichols* remarks on p. 126 apply equally to these experiments and to those on the sense of smell. 1 Shortly afterwards, the question was independently taken up and investigated with great care by Dr. Ottolenghi of Turin. 2 He experimented on 190 persons, i.e. 60 male congenital criminals, 20 male occasional criminals, 20 normal males of the lowest social class, 50 students and professional men, 20 criminal women, and 20 normal women; all were healthy and of robust constitution, the greater part between the ages of 20 and 50. He experimented with bitter, sweet, and salt sensations. For the first he selected sulphate of strychnine, and found that 12 per cent, of his normal persons perceived one part in 800,000; setting out from this strength he made eleven graduated solutions, the strongest being 1 part in 50,000; as a sweet substance, in place of sugar, which is not very divisible, he used saccharine, making eleven gradations between 1 in 100,000 parts (which could be tasted by 25 per cent of the normal men and 45 per cent of the normal women) and I in 10,000; the eleven common salt solutions ranged from I in 500 to 3 in 100. Numerous precautions 1 More recently Dr. Bailey has tested the sense of taste among Indians in a similar way; he finds that the order of delicacy is about the same as in white persons, but that the ability to detect dilute solutions is less among the Indians. The sexual differences found were the same as among the whites; males had a more delicate sense for salt, while in other respects the females possessed a more delicate organ. {Kansas University Quarterly », 1893.)
■ " II Gusto nei Criminali in Rapporto coi Normali," Archivic di Psichiatria> vol. x., Fasc. iii.-iv., pp. 332-338.
Google THE SENSES. 131 were taken: the mouth was well rinsed with luke- warm water; each experiment was repeated, and control experiments with distilled water were made to avoid the disturbing influence of expectation and subjective sensations; the solutions were kept at the temperature of the air. In making the test the solution was squirted on to the tongue from a pipette, and care was taken that the amount (half a c. cm.) should always be the same. Ottolenghi presents his results in a table which divides the subjects into three groups (indicating delicate, middling, and obtuse sensations) under each head of " bitter," " sweet," and "salt"; the table is so arranged that it also pre- sents the percentage of individuals in relation to each solution. Speaking generally, the criminals, more especially the male criminals, showed a very small proportion of persons with delicate sense of taste; the professional men showed keen sense of taste; in regard to bitter, for example, there were 54 per cent professional men in the class showing deli- cate perception, as against 15 per cent congenital criminals. The males of low social class came mid- way between professional men and criminals, but nearer to the criminals. The criminal women may be said to rank with the men of low social class, while the normal women on the whole rank with the professional men. Thus 50 per cent, normal women belong to the refined class as regards bitter, against 54 per cent, professional men; while 10 per cent belong to the obtuse class, against 14 per cent professional men. The weakest bitter solution was, however, only perceived by (4) professional men. Eighty per cent of the normal women belonged to the refined class as regards sweet, as against 70 per cent, professional men, the weakest solution being perceived by 45 per cent women to only 25 per cent professional men; while only 10 per cent belonged to the obtuse class as against 14 per cent of the pro- fessional men. Ninety per cent of the normal women Google 132 MAN AND WOMAN.
possessed refined taste as regards salt, against 80 per cent of the professional men, the difference in favour of women being marked in the case of the weakest salt solution (90 per cent of the women to 40 per cent of the professional men); this result is in curious contrast, it is worth while to note, to the exceptional delicacy as regards salt possessed by the men investigated by Bailey and Nichols.
Ottolenghi considers that his results show that men and women possess nearly equal acuteness as regards all three tastes, but he believes that if other conditions were equal, and male habits of smoking and drink- ing were taken into account, it would be found that men possess a more delicate sense of taste. It is clear, however, that an examination of Ottolenghi's care- fully made and clearly reported results does not justify this conclusion. No evidence is brought forward to show that alcohol and tobacco— as used temperately by average students and professional men — produces any degeneration of the gustatory apparatus, while the observations of Bailey and Nichols bring no support to this view. Moreover, the influence of social class, as shown by Ottolenghi's males, is so evident and so marked that it is obvious that we ought to know to what social class his "normal women" belonged. If they belonged to the same class as the students and professional men, then the evidence as presented by Ottolenghi simply shows that men and women are equal in this respect It is much more probable, however, that the women chiefly belonged to a much lower social class and were more nearly comparable to the males of very low social class. 1 If so, Ottolenghi's results may be said to support those of Nichols and Bailey.
1 This seems to be indicated in Dr. Ottolenghi's remark — interesting also from another point of view — that among the normal women were some who were "given to vices and debauchery," and that these showed a percentage of obtuseness at least as great as that shown by the criminal women.
Google THE SENSES. 1 33 The evidence, therefore, shows that while the sense of smell is most acute in men, the sense of taste is most acute in women.
HEARING.
Deafness (which is usually due to inflammation of the middle ear) is, in the opinion of nearly all authorities, decidedly more common in men than in women. Politzer, Troeltsch, Urbantschitsch, Wilde, Duncanson, etc, all agree on this point; Marc d'Espine found 97 deaf men to 62 deaf women; Zaufal found 698 men to 45 1 women. 1 Among children the sexual differences are slight.
While, however, the greater tendency of men to marked pathological disturbances of hearing seems fairly certain, I am not acquainted with any extended and reliable series of observations bearing on sexual differences in sensitiveness to sound during health. Dr. Roncoroni has examined 20 healthy men and 15 healthy women from this point of view, and finds the advantage in keenness on the side of the men; 12 of the men possessed a delicate sense of hearing as against 7 of the women. 2 Among the insane he found hearing nearly equal in men and women. Professor Jastrow still more recently has published a very brief note concerning an attempt to determine from what height a shot weighing 10 mgmm. must be dropped upon a glass plate so that the sound might be heard by the subject at a distance of 25 feet It was impossible to secure absolute and constant quiet, but the hearing of the women was decidedly more acute than that of the men, the results being 17 and 35 mm. respectively. 8 1 See Gelle\ Prieisdes Maladies deP Oreille, 1885, PP- 57*, 57*; also Weil, " Untersuch. d. Ohren u. d. Gehores v. 5905 SchuUundern," Zeitschrift /. Ohrenh,, vol. xi. p. 106.
1 Archivio di Psichiatria, 1892, Fasc i. pp. 108, 109.
* "Studies, etc.," Amer. Journal Psych., April 1892, pp. 422, 423.
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Thus these observations, so far as they go, lead to distinctly opposed results.