ABSTRACT
The chapter looks at pain, depends whether we see pain as a sensation, a symptom, an experience, a disease or a combination of all four. Pain is a universal experience and yet still remains poorly understood and often ineffectively managed. For physicians, some of the difficulties that we encounter may be the result of the fundamental principles of thought that govern our western medical science. The pain system, which is integrated into the immune system, is similarly protective and in principle little different. In the acute situation it protects from further harm. In the recovery from injury it protects from excessive use of an injured part to allow healing. Throughout recorded history man has struggled to understand pain. In biblical times it was seen not only as a punishment for sins committed but also as the means of cleansing one’s soul. Buddha in his First Noble Truth saw pain and suffering as being an inevitable part of life.
