A Brief History of Pain Treatment

Ancient civilizations recorded on stone tablets accounts of pain and the treatments used: pressure, heat, water, and sun. Early humans related pain to evil, magic, and demons. Relief of pain was the responsibility of sorcerers, shamans, priests, and priestesses, who used herbs, rites, and ceremonies as their treatments.

The Greeks and Romans were the first to advance a theory of sensation, the idea that the brain and nervous system have a role in producing the perception of pain. But it was not until the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance-the 1400s and 1500s-that evidence began to accumulate in support of these theories. Leonardo Da Vinci and his contemporaries came to believe that the brain was the central organ responsible for sensation. Da Vinci also developed the idea that the spinal cord transmits sensations to the brain.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the study of the body-and the senses-continued to be a source of wonder for the world's philosophers. In 1664, the French philosopher René Descartes described what to this day is still called a "pain pathway." Descartes illustrated how particles of fire, in contact with the foot, travel to the brain, and he compared pain sensation to the ringing of a bell.

In the 19th century, pain came to dwell under a new domain-science-paving the way for advances in pain therapy. Physician-scientists discovered that opium, morphine, codeine, and cocaine could be used to treat pain. These drugs led to the development of aspirin, to this day, the most commonly used pain reliever. Before long, anesthesia-both general and regional-was refined and applied during surgery.

"It has no future but itself," wrote the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson, speaking about pain. As the 21st century unfolds, however, advances in pain research are creating a less grim future than that portrayed in Dickinson's verse, a future that includes a better understanding of pain, along with greatly improved treatments to keep it in check.