Pain through history
As far as we know, all animals feel some sort of pain. We see it in our pets when they’re suffering or in the animals that lie at the side of the road after they’ve been hit by a car. How much pain they feel, we don’t know. I know, when I watched two of my dogs die of cancer, I found out too late in the process to help them. It turns out they were in pain for a long time, but never let on.
In ancient times, pain was considered to be evil. Pain was often seen as work of the devil, witches, or sorcery.
Over time, the Greek and Roman people began to clue in that pain wasn’t quite caused by evil, but by the body and there was something in the body that controlled how people felt and perceived pain. As time went on, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the idea that pain was caused by sensations from the brain and nervous system, took root.
Here’s a trivia question for you: What well-known Italian from that time (and his contemporaries) believed that the brain played the central role in the perception of pain (answer is at the end of this post). He also thought and tried to convince others that the spinal cord was what brought the nerves, the sensations of pain, throughout the body.
The study of pain continued and in 1664, René Descartes, a French philosopher, told of his theory of a “pain pathway.”
It was in the 1800s that scientists learned that the perception of pain could change according to different substances taken people who were experiencing pain. This is when they started using the opiates, like codeine, cocaine, opium, and morphine.
And, of course, the research into pain continues. We now know that there are many typs of pain, and they have many causes. What may help relieve one type of pain may not even touch another type. In fact, there’s a lot that we know won’t help pain - we still have a lot of work to do on what *will* help pain.
So, pain has always been a puzzle to the scientists and doctors. here’s to hoping that it won’t be a puzzle for much longer.
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Click here for the answer to the Italian who brought up the idea of the brain being the central organ in the perception of pain.
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Tags: brain, pain, pain perception, spinal cord
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