Excerpts

Texts

Suffering in Incompetent Hands

Ulrich von Hutten

Gout, a Case of Force Majeure

Charles V

A Risky Operation on a Young Child

Pierre Franco

The Cruelty of the Surgeon?

Ambroise Paré

Healing without Causing Pain?

Ambroise Paré

Ensuring the Patient's Comfort

Ambroise Paré

To Die Rather than Suffer from Stones

Ambroise Paré

Letting One's Pain Speak

Michel de Montaigne

The Expulsion of Calculi, Between Pain and Sweet Relief

Michel de Montaigne

The Spectacle of “Insufferable” Pain

Jehan Lhermite

The Difficult Use of Narcotics

Elías Montalto

A Dreaded Spectacle: A Queen in Childbirth

Louise Bourgeois

A Baby's Abdominal Pain

Lazare Rivière

The Brain as the Seat of Phantom Pain

René Descartes

The Signs of Bodily Pain

Marin Cureau de La Chambre

Pain: One Word, a Thousand Kinds of Pain

Marin Cureau de La Chambre

A Long and Intermittent Agony

Madame de Motteville

Representing the pain of the poor

Paul Dubé

Gout, an Illness of the Rich

Jean de La Fontaine

Compassion and Sociability

Madame de Sévigné

Acute Pain, the Only True Evil

Madame de Sévigné

Rebellious Headaches

Thomas Willis

Pain, an Indispensable Sentinel

Nicolas Malebranche

Making People Laugh at One's Pain

Madame de La Guette

The Invisible Teeth of Gout

Thomas Sydenham

The Surgeon's Humane Duty

Pierre Dionis

When a Scholar Dissects his Pain

Laurence Sterne

Musics