Someone once remarked that humans have an unlimited capacity to endure pain in others. During the Inquisition, and at many times before and since, there are those among us who believe in the redemptive and honorable value of pain. Torquemada, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition, has modern counterparts who believe that pain will make people “tougher.” For patients in a severe pain state, as with Central Pain, such an attitude will leave them a smoldering, burned-out hulk.

In 1521, a Dr. Viethes in Hamburg was found guilty of the capital offense of relieving the pain of a woman in childbirth. His penalty was execution. Severe punishment for similar attempts at kindness occurred in Scotland and elsewhere. Today, while we do not execute those who study pain relief, they are largely ignored professionally.

It is amazing that no pain researcher, not even ones who made landmark discoveries, has ever been nominated for the Nobel Prize. For example, in the 19th century Dr. William Morton introduced ether as a means of pain relief. His contribution prevented the suffering of countless millions, yet history has largely forgotten his name.

Dr. John Bonica invented the epidural block and administered it to his own wife while she was in labor with their second child in the 1930s, yet at least two full generations of women gave birth without benefit of an epidural, while the medical profession sat by with a sluggishness unmatched in history. It is time to relegate the so-called “beneficial aspects of pain” to the same grave where we have laid practices such as using leeches to bleed a patient.