At the first anniversary meeting of the Bose institute, held on the
30th November 1918, Sir J. C. Bose gave the following discourse on his
recent discoveries relating to the question of control of nervous
impulse, under the Presidency of His Excellency Lord Ronaldshay,
Governor of Bengal.
It is one of the greatest of all mysteries how we are put in connection
with the external world: how blows from without are felt within. Our
organs of sensation are like so many antennae radiating in various
directions and picking up messages of many kinds. All of these, when
analysed to their utmost, consist of shock effects on different chords.
An extremely feeble stimulus is below the limit of perception, a
moderate stimulus transmits excitation, which is perceived as sensation
of not an unpleasant character, but the tone of sensation becomes
painful when the excitation is very intense. Our sensation is thus
coloured by the intensity of the nervous excitation that reaches the
central organ. We are subject to human limitations, through the
imperfection of our senses on the one hand, and over-sensibility on the
other. There are happenings which elude us because the impinging
stimulus is too feeble to waken our senses; the external shock, on the
other hand, may be so intense as to fill our life with pain.
Since we have no direct power over the shocks which come to us from the
outside world, is it possible to control the nervous impulse so that it
should be exalted in one case, and inhibited or obliterated in the
other? Does advance of science hold any such possibility? This question
is plainly fraught with high significance.