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Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
August 2010
On Sale: August 17, 2010
384 pages
ISBN: 0865476810
EAN: 9780865476813
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction | Historical
Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of
us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today
as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States
suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread,
misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While
recent research has shown that pain produces pathological
changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and
patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and
outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to
devastating effect. 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.
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