The Challenge of Pain

Oct 4, 2024 11:25 AM

Author:Patrick Wall,Ronald Melzack

Pain has many valuable functions. It can be a warning or force us to rest our bodies. Yet most ongoing chronic pain, such as unrelenting backache or headache, has no discernable cause and diminishes countless lives.

Over the years a scientific revolution has taken place in chronic pain research and therapy. A major catalyst for this was the introduction of the ‘gate theory’ by Professor Ronald Melzack and Professor Patrick D. Wall, which argued that pain is a unified stream of experience generated by the brain, incorporating a whole host of psychological functions. Their now-classic book, with a new introduction taking in all the latest medical developments, examines every facet of pain: the psychological and clinical aspects, the physiological evidence, the major theories of pain and the developments in its control.

The challenge in the twenty-first century is to look at how memories, personal and social expectations, genetics, gender, aging and stress patterns all play a role in pain, and how understanding this could lead to the relief of the suffering endured by millions.

Reviews

The prose is perfectly pitched: Sapolsky writes in a jocular, entertaining style without ever pandering to the presumed ignorance of his readers. And he expresses infectious enthusiasm, especially when he is reporting on new experiments performed by colleagues in his field

—— Steven Poole , Guardian

Sapolsky, who has a weakness for Martian jokes, is a bona fide boffin, but he looks beyond the lab for his case studies, assembling a cast that includes Sandra Bullock and a love-struck baboon named Jonathan. This highly readable book will both inform and enlarge your appreciation of the mystery of existence

—— Mail on Sunday

The author of Monkeyluv, an entertaining collection of essays about humans and animals, is also a luminary among that rare breed - the funny scientist. These essays on genetic wars between men and women, dreams, bad moods, ambiguity and stress are...a combination of Oliver Sacks and David Foster Wallace

—— Los Angeles Times

Sapolsky gives us these and many more intriguing gene factoids, but he also explains the elaborate nature/nurture interactions in which they are embedded...the book is a witty blend of anecdote and analysis

—— Rita Carter , Daily Mail

Fascinating

—— Sunday Times

Compelling. His spirit of intellectual adventuring is infectious

—— New Scientist

Cocker is a beautiful writer...the twilight and his beloved rooks bring out the poet in him...a loving observation of the wonders on the wing in everyday England

—— Ann Wroe , Daily Telegraph

The nation's most observant and intuitive of nature writers

—— Sunday Express

As obsessive a celebration of rook and jackdaw - and of human immersion in nature - as anyone could wish

—— Irish Times

A vivid example of the "new nature writing" it is a lyrical and intense evocation of the world of jackdaws and rook, and an elegy on watchfulness

—— Daily Telegraph

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