Inventing Pain Medicine

Explores the current state of pain medicine against the background of its historical development. The study outlines the first steps to control pain taken in the last years of World War II and traces the pioneering struggle for recognition of pain as worthy of medical attention in itself.

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Pain is a pervasive subject in our culture - especially as something to be combatted and conquered. This text explores the current state of pain medicine against the background of its historical development. Based on extensive field research, the study outlines the first tentative steps to control pain taken in the last years of World War II, when a young American anaesthesiologist, John J. Bonica, made alleviating the pain of wounded soldiers his mission. Baszanger traces Bonica's protracted pioneering struggle for recognition of pain as worthy of medical attention in itself, for a definition of pain as more than a diagnostic tool, including differentiation of types of pain and modes of treatment, and for the establishment of specialized multidisciplinary pain clinics. Baszanger also provides an in-depth comparative analysis of the divergent approaches toward pain and its treatment at two clinics in France, taking into account her observations at consultation sessions as well as many interviews with physicians, clinic staff and patients.
Her ethnographic enquiries are anchored in socio-historical reflections on the social and conceptual transformations which were necessary to make the invention of pain medicine possible. She explains why sufferers of chronic pain had to wait until the end of the 20th century to find physicians and clinics specializing in the alleviation of their condition.