Publications
APS Bulletin • Volume 8, Number 4, 1998
Pain and Public Policy
’Pain and Suffering in History’:
A UCLA Symposium Honoring John Liebeskind
Marcia Meldrum, PhD
“Professionalizing Pain”
The UCLA biomedical library and the departments of history and psychology organized a history of pain symposium on March 13-14, 1998, to honor the memory of John C. Liebeskind, founder of the UCLA History of Pain Project, and to open the Liebeskind History of Pain Collection. Ten invited scholars from the fields of English literature, anesthesiology, anthropology, neurology, history, sociology, and psychiatry gave memorable presentations on diverse aspects of pain as a historical, medical, and social problem.
More than 100 people attended the symposium, including APS Board members, members of the UCLA community, members of the southern California pain community, and representatives of the pain field from as far away as Australia and Belgium.
“Pain Alleviation and Anesthesia”
representing pain in the 19th century and earlier
A special feature of the symposium was a beautiful 10-panel exhibit, "The Relief of Pain and Suffering," created by the History of Pain Project staff: Katharine Donahue, David Gartrell, Russell Johnson, Teresa Johnson, and Marcia Meldrum, with funding support from APS. This exhibit remains at the library and will travel to the APS meeting in San Diego this November and to the International Association for the Study of Pain World Congress in Vienna, Austria, in August 1999.The presentations on March 13 included "An Invisible History of Pain in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain and America" by David Morris, a writer on medical culture and author of The Culture of Pain; "The Medical Response to Pain During the Nineteenth Century" by Donald Caton, of the department of anesthesiology at the University of Florida in Gainesville; "Pain, Sensitivity, and Social Danger in Nineteenth-Century Criminology" by David Horn, anthropologist at the department of comparative studies at Ohio State University; "Brown-Sequard and the Pain Pathway in the Spinal Cord" by Michael Aminoff of the UCSF department of neurology; "From Soma to Polis: Pain and Suffering in Modern German National Identity" by Gregory Eghigian of the department of history at the University of Texas-Arlington; "Pain, Democracy, and Free Enterprise: The Headache and Its Remedies in Historical Perspective" by Jan McTavish of the department of history at the University of Winnipeg; and "'Tell Me if This Hurts': The Problem of Pain and Analgesic Measurement 1940-1960" by Marcia Meldrum of the UCLA department of history.
“Anesthesia Revolution of the 1800s”
Presentations on March 14 included "Total Pain and Disciplinary Power in the Work of Cicely Saunders, 1957-1967" by David Clark, a medical sociologist from the University of Sheffield and director of the Hospice History Project; "Pain in the Clinicopathological Method" by Mark Sullivan of the department of psychiatry at the University of Washington; "The Founding of the International Association for the Study of Pain" by Harold Merskey, IASP historian and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario; and "The Founding of the American Pain Society" by Marcia Meldrum, APS historian.
A tribute to Dr. Liebeskind and his work followed the papers on the founding of the IASP and APS; at the close of this tribute, the audience honored Dr. Liebeskind's memory with a standing round of applause. Several speakers commented on their personal relationships with Dr. Liebeskind and on his scientific and historical contributions to the field of pain.
Many people commented about the remarkably interdisciplinary nature of the symposium and the active interest of all the participants in the issues that were discussed. We believe the symposium will help to generate scholarly and public interest in the historical and contemporary problem of pain. In August 1998, the UCLA History of Pain Project will publish a softcover book of the proceedings, and a copy will be sent to the board. A report of the symposium will also appear on our Web site.
The Fetzer Institute of Kalamazoo, MI, and the University of California Humanities Research Institute generously provided external support for the symposium.