A PROFESSES OBSERVATIONS.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12488, 15 March 1909, Page 3

A PROFESSES OBSERVATIONS.

j PANICAND PAIN.

: ; The aged Professor of Criminology, Oesare Lombroso, writing, like Milton, with the. hehp of his daughterj Signorina P,aola LOmbrosOj "contributes, a long article to a Paris newspaper on "The "State of Mind l?uring tne Italian Catastrophe:" . ' v. ' : "No ;OneV even though seriously wounded, speaks of physical,.suffering." j: Prof essoiffLqmbro.so remarks :— "The panic, the terror took possession of 'their senses and paralysed all sense of pain. ; Men who had an; arm' broken --ran: miles without, knowing it; a woman /vtfhose eye: wasso badly hurt. that it hadjto be removed /declares that she felt nothing. With bare feet," clad with only a shirt, the first thought of the survivors was to fly, arid they set off without thought or reflection, with;put knowing why they -ran; _ There/was "a siriking episode- of icollective'-mutism. At^the : time ; of the'eatastfophe" three hundred workpeople were about to en-l te£ a factory. f \They.:staydd .outside and thjus were saved, but'their .amazement was so; great that> when, the dir rector jof the viactory called out their namesj scarcely one answered; their own .names had: slippjpdv their. Tecollec-. tion. ".:'•".■.">''"■. v :- ■.■.-"•' ■■ ; ;'i:"' ; .

Professor Lombroso also gives some remarkable instances in which , ; the instinct ;of self-preservation showed.^ifeselFyery strongly. Women and. chil-i dren remained, two days ;sittiug .on' Vwindow: sills on' -the third :• and f ourtli. floors.; This reminds;! Professor Lqmbrpso : of the remark often ma do. ;• by Ahpme plimbers VVthatT the instinct; of self : ' preservation^ always . : "dominates any tekdency to dizziness. Professor Lombroso goes pn to" show that children Resisted terror and: pain better "than adults. This; he says ; <was probably due, not only to their remarkable "power : for resisting; suffocation, but also to their unconsciousness' of danger,- and the sensation of _fear, which irfiist certainly; have killed the majority of those who died after being extricated; ' / --' : :~.-- '-,■'- '■'-'■''. , "