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Pain

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Summary

This paper is an attempt to report in an abbreviated fashion the present scientific views about pain and associated sensations.

It reviews ancient philosophical definitions of pain and more recent and present-day definitions of scientists.

The histological-anatomical findings concerning pain receptors, pain fibers and fibers carrying other associated sensations, their pathways and the central representation of pain are reported.

Pain measurement by the “dol”, pain threshold and reaction threshold, and the different conditions altering the pain threshold are discussed. The threshold-raising factors are seen as tools for the practitioner with which to combat pain. Some of the most common pains like headache—or pain from the viscera in the thoracic cage and in the abdomen—are specifically reported. Their origins and the present views of those origins on a somatic or psychogenic basis, and some methods of differential diagnosis of these pains are reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Islip State Hospital, Central Islip, N. Y.

    Josef Matfus M. D.

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  1. Josef Matfus M. D.
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Matfus, J. Pain. Psych Quar 25, 97–131 (1951). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01584267

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01584267

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