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.
- ISBN10 0865476810
- ISBN13 9780865476813
- Publish Date 17 August 2010
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 19 October 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint North Point Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 368
- Language English