Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myhts, Mysteries

In The Pain Chronicles, Melanie Thernstrom traces conceptions of pain throughout the agesfrom ancient Babylonian pain-banishing spells to modern brain imagingto reveal the elusive, mysterious nature of pain itself. Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines, Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear.