Editing W. H. R. Rivers (section)

=="A Human Experiment in Nerve Division"==
Upon his return to England from the Torres Strait, Rivers became aware of a series of experiments being conducted by his old friend Henry Head in conjunction with [[James Sherren]], a surgeon at the London Hospital where they both worked.<ref name="langham"/> Since 1901, the pair had been forming a systematic study of nerve injuries among patients attending the hospital.<ref name="langham"/> Rivers, who had long been interested in the physiological consequences of nerve division,<ref name="Head1922"/> was quick to take on the role of "guide and counsellor".<ref name="NerveDivision">{{cite journal |first1=W. H. R. |last1=Rivers |first2=Henry |last2=Head |author2-link=Henry Head |year=1908 |title= A Human Experiment in Nerve Division |journal= Brain |volume= 31 | issue=3 |pages= 323–450 |doi=10.1093/brain/31.3.323|title-link=s:A Human Experiment in Nerve Division }}</ref>

It quickly became clear to Rivers, looking in on the experiment from a psycho-physical aspect, that the only way accurate results could be obtained from introspection on behalf of the patient is if the subject under investigation was himself a trained observer, sufficiently discriminative to realise if his introspection was being prejudiced by external irrelevancies or moulded by the form of the experimenter's questions, and sufficiently detached to lead a life of detachment throughout the entire course of the tests.<ref name="langham"/> It was in the belief that he could fulfil these requirements, that Head himself volunteered to act, as Langham puts it, "as Rivers's experimental guinea-pig".<ref name="langham"/>

So it was that, on 25 April 1903, the radial and external cutaneous nerves of Henry Head's arm were severed and sutured.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> Rivers was then to take on the role of examiner and chart the regeneration of the nerves, considering the structure and functions of the nervous system from an evolutionary standpoint through a series of "precise and untiring observations" over a period of five years.<ref name="Head1922"/>

{{wikisource|A human experiment in nerve division}}

At first observation, the day after the operation, the back of Head's hand and the dorsal surface of his thumb were seen to be "completely insensitive to stimulation with cotton wool, to pricking with a pin, and to all degrees of heat and cold."<ref name="NerveDivision"/> While cutaneous sensibility had ceased, deep sensibility was maintained so that pressure with a finger, a pencil or with any blunt object was appreciated without hesitation.<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

So that the distractions of a busy life should not interfere with Head's introspective analysis, it was decided that the experimentation should take place in Rivers's rooms.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> Here, as Head states, "for five happy years we worked together on week-ends and holidays in the quiet atmosphere of his rooms at St John's College."<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/> In the normal course of events, Head would travel to Cambridge on Saturday, after spending several hours on the outpatient department of the London Hospital. On these occasions, however, he would find that he was simply too exhausted to work on the Saturday evening so experimentation would have to be withheld until the Sunday. If, therefore, a long series of tests were to be carried out, Head would come to Cambridge on the Friday, returning to London on Monday morning. At some points, usually during Rivers's vacation period, longer periods could be devoted to the observations.<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/> Between the date of the operation and their last sitting on 13 December 1907, 167&nbsp;days were devoted to the investigation.<ref name="RoyalSoc1922"/>

Since Head was simultaneously collaborator and experimental subject, extensive precautions were taken to make sure that no outside factors influenced his subjective appreciation of what he was perceiving:<ref name="langham"/> "No questions were asked until the termination of a series of events; for we found it was scarcely possible... to ask even simple questions without giving a suggestion either for or against the right answer... The clinking of ice against the glass, the removal of the kettle from the hob, tended to prejudice his answers... [Rivers] was therefore particularly careful to make all his preparations beforehand; the iced tubes were filled and jugs of hot and cold water ranged within easy reach of his hand, so that the water of the temperature required might be mixed silently."<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

Moreover, although before each series of tests Head and Rivers would discuss their plan of action, Rivers was careful to vary this order to such an extent during the actual testing that Head would be unable to tell what was coming next.<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

Gradually during the course of the investigation, certain isolated spots of cutaneous sensibility began to appear; these spots were sensitive to heat, cold and pressure.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> However, the spaces between these spots remained insensitive at first,  unless sensations- such as heat or cold- reached above a certain threshold at which point the feeling evoked was unpleasant and usually perceived as being "more painful" than it was if the same stimulus was applied to Head's unaffected arm.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> Also, although the sensitive spots were quite definitely localised, Head, who sat through the tests with his eyes closed, was unable to gain any exact appreciation of the locus of stimulation.<ref name="langham"/> Quite the contrary, the sensations radiated widely, and Head tended to refer them to places remote from the actual point of stimulation.<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

[[Image:Experiment in nerve division 1903-1907.JPG|left|frame|[[Henry Head]] and W. H. R. Rivers experimenting in Rivers's rooms (1903–1907)]]

This was the first stage of the recovery process and Head and Rivers dubbed it the "protopathic",<ref name="NerveDivision"/> taking its origins from the [[Middle Greek]] word ''protopathes'', meaning "first affected".<ref name="langham"/> This protopathic stage seemed to be marked by an "all-or-nothing" aspect since there was either an inordinate response to sensation when compared with normal reaction or no reaction whatever if the stimulation was below the threshold.<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

Finally, when Head was able to distinguish between different temperatures and sensations below the threshold, and when he could recognise when two compass points were applied simultaneously to the skin, Head's arm began to enter the second stage of recovery.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> They named this stage the "epicritic", from the Greek ''epikritikos'', meaning "determinative".<ref name="langham"/>

From an evolutionary perspective, it soon became clear to Rivers that the [[Cutaneous innervation#Types of sensory neurons|epicritic nervous reaction]] was the superior, as it suppressed and abolished all protopathic sensibility.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> This, Rivers found, was the case in all parts of the skin of the male anatomy except one area where protopathic sensibility is unimpeded by epicritic impulses: the [[glans penis]].<ref name="NerveDivision"/> As Langham points out, with special references to "Rivers's reputed sexual proclivities",<ref>Langham also finds it of interest, in lieu of Rivers's sexual leanings, that the only internal area of protopathic sensitivity the investigators were to find was that of the lower alimentary canal (see Head, Rivers and Sherren, "The Afferent Nervous System from a New Aspect", ''Brain'' '''28'''- 1905)</ref> it is at this point that the experiment takes on an almost farcical aspect to the casual reader.<ref name="langham"/> It may not seem surprising to us that when Rivers was to apply a needle to a particularly sensitive part of the glans that "pain appeared and was so excessively unpleasant that [Head] cried out and started away";<ref name="NerveDivision"/> indeed, such a test could be seen as a futility verging on the masochistic. Nor would we necessarily equate the following passage with what one might normally find in a scientific text:

"The foreskin was drawn back, and the penis allowed to hang downwards. A number of drinking glasses were prepared containing water at different temperatures. [Head] stood with his eyes closed, and [Rivers] gradually approached one of the glasses until the surface of the water covered the glans but did not touch the foreskin. Contact with the fluid was not appreciated; if, therefore, the temperature of the water was such that it did not produce a sensation of heat or cold, Head was unaware that anything had been done."<ref name="NerveDivision"/>

However, the investigations, bizarre as they may seem, did have a sound scientific basis since Rivers especially was looking at the protopathic and epicritic from an evolutionary perspective.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> From this standpoint it is intensely interesting to note that the male anatomy maintains one area which is "unevolved" in so much as it is "associated with a more primitive form of sensibility".<ref name="NerveDivision"/> Using this information about the protopathic areas of the human body, Rivers and Head then began to explore elements of man's psyche.<ref name="langham"/> One way in which they did this was to examine the [[Goose bumps|"pilomotor reflex"]] (the erection of hairs). Head and Rivers noted that the thrill evoked by aesthetic pleasure is "accompanied by the erection of hairs"<ref name="NerveDivision"/> and they noted that this reaction was no greater in the area of skin with protopathic sensibility than it was in the area of the more evolved epicritic, making it a purely psychologically based phenomena.<ref name="NerveDivision"/> As Langham puts it: "The image of a man reading a poem to evoke aesthetic pleasure while a close friend meticulously studies the erection of his hairs may seem ludicrous. However, it provides a neat encapsulation of Rivers's desire to subject possibly protopathic phenomena to the discipline of rigorous investigation."<ref name="langham"/>

===Pre-war psychological work===
In 1904, with Professor [[James Ward (psychologist)|James Ward]] and some others, Rivers founded the [[British Journal of Psychology]] of which he was at first joint editor.<ref name="ajop36">{{cite journal |author=Bartlett, F. C. |year=1923 |title=William Halse Rivers Rivers, 1864–1922 |type=abridged | journal = American Journal of Psychology |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=275–7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070625101203/http://www-bartlett.sps.cam.ac.uk/WilliamHalseRivers.htm |archive-date=25 June 2007 |url=http://www.bartlett.psychol.cam.ac.uk/WilliamHalseRivers.htm |url-status=live |author-link=Frederic Bartlett }}</ref>

From 1908 until the outbreak of the war Rivers was mainly preoccupied with ethnological and sociological problems. Already he had relinquished his official post as lecturer in Experimental Psychology in favour of [[Charles Samuel Myers]], and now held only a lectureship on the physiology of the special senses.<ref name="ajop50">{{cite journal |author=Bartlett, F. C. |year=1937 |title=Cambridge, England, 1887–1937 |journal=American Journal of Psychology |volume=50 |issue=1/4 |pages=97–110 |doi=10.2307/1416623 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051123223834/http://www-bartlett.sps.cam.ac.uk/CambridgeEngland.htm |archive-date=23 November 2005 |url=http://www.bartlett.psychol.cam.ac.uk/CambridgeEngland.htm |url-status=live |jstor=1416623 |author-link=Frederic Bartlett }}</ref> By degrees he became more absorbed in anthropological research. But though he was now an ethnologist rather than a psychologist he always maintained that what was of value in his work was due directly to his training in the psychological laboratory. In the laboratory he had learnt the importance of exact method; in the field he now gained vigour and vitality by his constant contact with the actual daily behaviour of human beings.

During 1907–8 Rivers travelled to [[Solomon Islands|the Solomon Islands]], and other areas of [[Melanesia]] and [[Polynesia]]. His two-volume ''History of Melanesian Society'' (1914), which he dedicated to St Johns,<ref name="HistMel"/>   presented a diffusionist thesis for the development of culture in the south-west Pacific.<ref name="odnb"/> In the year of publication he made a second journey to Melanesia, returning to England in March 1915, to find that war had broken out.