ABSTRACT
John Bonica wrote that ‘The proper management of pain remains, after all, the most important obligation, the main objective, and the crowning achievement of every physician’. Religious concerns also influenced the historical perceptions of the meaning of pain. Pain also serves an essential function during the recovery period from injury or infection, for it enforces rest in order to promote healing. In the course of his duties as Consultant in Anesthesia and Resuscitation in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, Beecher had the opportunity to make careful records of the extent of pain suffered by freshly wounded soldiers in the combat zone. Beecher thought that their different responses were due to differences in the significance of pain to the soldier and to the civilian patient. Beecher’s front-line observations in battle, and those of Guthrie and Porter in the previous century, focused on the relatively straightforward problem of acute pain.
