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Oxbow says: Methods of controlling pain, whether treating a headache, or in anticipation of surgery, are taken for granted in modern life. Thomas Dormandy, a chemical pathologist, examines how we got to where we are today in his cultural history of pain and pain control. In it he explores the 'breakthroughs, haphazard experiments, ignorant attitudes, and surprising developments', as well as changing attitudes towards pain and improvements in scientific understanding. From alcohol, knock-out blows and hypnosis, to the use of plants, local anaesthesia and religious faith, he traces how ancient and modern societies dealt with pain - how they perceived, feared, resisted, endured and supressed it. The book is both thematic and chronological beginning in ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, China and India, South America, the Arab world, through to the Christian martyrs and heretics of the medieval period, the breakthroughs of the Renaissance, and the foundations of modern surgical anaesthesia. More than half of the book deals with the early modern period, taking the fight against pain up to the present day.