Normal and Pathological Referred Itch
Referred itch is the class of referred sensation that focuses on the situation in which an itch in one place on the body simultaneously triggers an itch in a different location. Other examples of referred sensation include sensations of temperature, pain, and pressure. Referred itch is commonly observed in completely healthy individuals and can often go unnoticed depending upon the particular person’s self-awareness of their itches and the causes of those itches. The ephemeral nature of referred itch and its restriction to a very small area on one’s body (the itch is precisely located, it does not induce widespread itching) make it difficult to document or even notice.
The majority of the cases of referred itch studied by experimenters occur in healthy individuals. Furthermore, referred itch itself does not confer any adverse effects on the health of those experiencing it. With the exception of the annoyance of feeling multiple itches and a potentially minuscule feeling of pain, it is an innocuous condition. The cause of referred itch in healthy individuals is still not known for certain, but there are a multiple recorded cases of referred itch being triggered by certain pathological stimuli.
Two men developed temporary referred sensation after suffering from shingles. Here, the referred sensation occurred in the areas previously affected by the shingles. Another man who suffered from hyperpathia and reduced nerve functioning later experienced referred itch in conjunction with his pathology. This evidence suggests that although referred itch occurs spontaneously in healthy individuals, certain pathologies make it possible to acquire the condition, even if only temporarily.
Read more about this topic: Referred Itch
Famous quotes containing the words normal and, normal, pathological, referred and/or itch:
“You know that fiction, prose rather, is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing. You do not have the reference, the old important reference. You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true. You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and also have it seem normal and so that it can become a part of experience of the person who reads it.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“A few ideas seem to be agreed upon. Help none but those who help themselves. Educate only at schools which provide in some form for industrial education. These two points should be insisted upon. Let the normal instruction be that men must earn their own living, and that by the labor of their hands as far as may be. This is the gospel of salvation for the colored man. Let the labor not be servile, but in manly occupations like that of the carpenter, the farmer, and the blacksmith.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A pathological business, writing, don’t you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!”
—Hans Magnus Enzensberger (b. 1929)
“Exaggerated history is poetry, and truth referred to a new standard.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are several sorts of curiosity: a curiosity of self-interest, for example, which makes us desire to learn things that may be useful to us; and one of pride, which proceeds from an itch to know more than other people.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)