The problem of pain

Practical surgery has already done a great deal to combat pain: anesthesia and local anesthesia have been introduced, and the whole sea of human suffering has thus been left far behind. But the questions of the essence of pain from the psychological point of view, of the construction and mechanics of apparatuses available in our organism for the perception of pain, and of the pathways conveying pain, still remain largely unresolved. In the studies made in this field there are many uncertainties, varieties, assumptions, and unsatisfactory answers to the most basic questions. This undoubtedly has the consequence that so far we are far from being able with the means at our disposal to stop or even only to reduce pains, especially where they, plunging man into severe suffering, are played out in connection with an unknown, or with a known, but unremovable root cause.