Pain and Privation Man has succeeded pretty well in assuring himself 

 of the basic necessities, through his fight against natural forces and enemies. 

 Actual hunger has been reduced, even if many are still undernourished. We 

 no longer accept starvation as a regular part of Ufe, as people in many parts 

 of the world did in the past, and still do in some. Probably fewer people to- 

 day suffer from extreme cold or exposure, from bad housing and inadequate 

 clothing. Yet here, again, our population is far from adequately supplied 

 with the necessities for modest but safe living. 



We have also reduced the suffering due to many preventable diseases and 

 to infections that sometimes follow bruises, cuts, the stings and bites of animals, 

 childbearing, surgical operations. 



From ancient times people have been seeking ways of overcoming physical 

 pain. Opium, which is prepared from the latex of the seed-capsule of the 

 Oriental poppy, has been used to produce drowsiness and stupor. For many 

 centuries people have used alcohol to "cheer" them up and to "drown their 

 sorrows". Other drugs and devices have been used in efforts to reduce suffer- 

 ing. Generally speaking, however, physical pain has, until comparatively 

 recently, been accepted as in the nature of things, as part of man's lot. Only 

 since 1800 have people begun to consider seriously the idea that physical pain 

 could be attacked systematically, like any other human problem. In that year 

 Humphry Davy (1778-1829) suggested that pain might be deadened by the 

 use of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas" — which had been discovered in 1776 

 by Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). In about forty years nitrous oxide and later 

 ether came into use for destroying pain during the pulling of teeth. Gradually 

 it became customary to prevent pain in all surgical operations by using 

 anesthesia, a name suggested by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and meaning 

 "lack of sensation". 



Joseph Y. Simpson (1811-1870), a Scottish surgeon, first used chloroform 

 to avoid pains in childbirth. Many groups opposed this on "religious" grounds. 

 They did not argue that chloroform might be injurious, but were convinced 

 that "God intended" woman to bear children in pain. When Queen Victoria 

 gave birth to a child with the help of chloroform, the opposition began to 

 die down. 



After the middle of the century it was discovered that cocain destroys sen- 

 sitivity to pain in the tissues into which it has been injected. Later it came 

 into use as a local anesthetic. As a result of modern chemical and physiological 

 studies, we now have various preparations that ease or completely overcome 

 physical pain, and that without destroying consciousness. We have perhaps 

 all read about the surgeon whose leg was crushed in an accident and who, 

 after receiving the suitable "anesthesia", directed the amputation and con- 

 versed with the other surgeons. The drug blocks some of the afferent nerves 

 but leaves certain efferent paths and the higher brain centers unaffected. 



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