The Pain Chronicles

Traces conceptions of pain throughout the ages - from ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imaging - to reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Both a personal meditation and an intellectual exploration, the author illuminates and makes sense of the all-too-human experience of pain.

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In "The Pain Chronicles", a singular and deeply humane work, Melanie Thernstrom traces conceptions of pain throughout the ages - from ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imaging - to reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading-edge pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines - science, history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, literature, and art - Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear. Both a personal meditation and an intellectual exploration, "The Pain Chronicles" illuminates and makes sense of the all-too-human experience of pain - and confronts with extraordinary grace and empathy its peculiar traits, its harrowing effects, and its various antidotes.