The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering

Melanie Thernstrom

Aug 2010 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Laural Merlington

About this audiobook

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changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect.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.

About the author

Melanie Thernstrom is the author of the bestselling memoir The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder, and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.

Laural Merlington has recorded well over one hundred audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards, including one for Never Say Die by Susan Jacoby.