This article explains the medical definition of pain and its evolutionary role, and provides historical examples of the anesthetic methods humans have developed to reduce pain. It also explores the different approaches to accepting and managing pain, and how human efforts to overcome pain can improve quality of life and lead to social and ethical challenges.
What is pain? The medical definition of pain is an unpleasant sensation caused by stimulation of specialized nerves with pain receptors; or, evolutionarily, it is a product of evolution and an adaptation that many animals, including humans, have developed through the process of natural selection to avoid threats. It’s a survival mechanism that allows us to avoid hot things after being burned, to identify prey with stomach pain if we’ve eaten the wrong thing, and to protect ourselves from sharp, sharp things or shocks so that we can survive more effectively. Pain is more than just an unpleasant sensation; it’s an important warning signal and defense mechanism for survival.
But because pain is a survival instinct, it’s natural to want to avoid it. Pain is a necessary experience in human life, but it’s also something we want to avoid. Even in modern society, we try to reduce pain in various ways. For example, there are psychotherapy and drug therapies to deal with mental distress, and various medical approaches to relieve chronic pain. This shows that pain is more than just a physical sensation; it also has a huge impact on the mental and emotional realm.
However, many people who try to eliminate this pain end up, ironically, dying from other pain. For humans, the most prominent method used throughout history to reduce pain has been “anesthesia,” which is the temporary numbing of pain. While numbing pain is not the same as eliminating it entirely, it provides great comfort to the patient for the moment. However, anesthesia was not perfected for a long time, and many people had to live in pain. The process of treating patients in hospitals and performing surgeries was barbaric and filled with screams, and most patients had to watch and feel their bodies being dismembered. It was not uncommon for patients to die of shock from the pain.
Then, in the early 19th century, a serendipitous discovery began to end the suffering. In the early 19th century, ether and nitrous oxide, or “laughing gas,” became popular in the United States, especially among the upper classes. This revolutionized the medical world, and the discovery of anesthesia was more than just a medical discovery; it helped to dramatically improve the quality of human life. A doctor named Crawford Long was one of them. One day, while enjoying his usual nightlife with laughing gas, he realized that he was not feeling the pain from a bruise and soon decided to test the anesthetic properties of ether. He performed ether anesthesia on a patient with a tumor in his neck, and the successful surgery soon led to the birth of ether anesthesia. Curiously, however, he never published the birth of anesthesia in the scientific community, instead focusing on clinical research and developing his methods.
Meanwhile, there was another dentist of the time, Horace Wells. While attending a lecture on nitrous oxide, he witnessed an audience member inhaling nitrous oxide and feeling no pain. The next day, he experimented with nitrous oxide anesthesia on himself and succeeded in pulling out a tooth in peace. This was the birth of nitrous oxide anesthesia. In fact, there had been people who had discovered the anesthetic before, but it was Horace Wells who made it medically viable. Unfortunately, the demonstration of the anesthesia to gain recognition for the discovery was marred by just the right amount of miscalculation, and Horace Wells was frustrated. Nevertheless, his attempt marked a major turning point in the development of anesthesia, and it has since become a widely accepted method in medicine.
But there was a ray of hope in the crowd. A man named William Morton, who witnessed the scene, asks Harvard chemistry professor Charles Jackson for advice, and uses ether instead of nitrous oxide in his dental practice to confirm its effectiveness. After repeated clinical applications, he contacts newspapers and the patent office. Ether anesthesia surgery under a doctor named John Warren spreads across the country, but controversy erupts over the patentability of ether. While anesthesia revolutionized medicine, the rights and fame surrounding it led to another form of suffering.
And then the tragedy begins. Horace Wells, the inventor of nitrous oxide anesthesia, was already ridiculed by the scientific community despite his continued research, and after applying the anesthetic to his own body, he became mentally ill and was arrested for a sulfuric acid attack on a passerby. Although he is able to relieve the pain of many people with nitrous oxide, he is eventually overcome by mental anguish and ends his life by cutting his arteries in prison. Tragically, this is only 12 days before he receives a letter from the Paris Medical Association recognizing him as the first discoverer and applied researcher of nitrous oxide anesthesia.
Also, a patent dispute over ether breaks out, the so-called “ether controversy”. Charles Jackson, the aforementioned chemistry professor, could not stand to see William Morton take sole credit for the discovery of ether, and the ripples that spread to Congress would eventually lead to the rediscovery of Crawford Long’s work. But he avoided becoming embroiled in the sordid controversy, and both William Morton and Charles Jackson met tragic ends, unable to compromise with their own greed, despite their merits. Morton’s mental illness and the financial ruin of patent lawsuits led to his downfall, and in 1868 he suffered a stroke while running down the street. Charles Jackson also suffered from mental illness and was committed to an insane asylum, where he died alone in 1880.
With the development of ether, nitrous oxide, and other general anesthetics, mankind was able to gain some freedom from the pain that had plagued us for so long. Anesthesia has changed the human response to pain and has saved countless lives by alleviating suffering. Paradoxically, however, these pioneers, who were able to reduce pain and save countless lives, often met tragic ends.
We must remember the pioneers who suffered along the way. Many of them were not afraid to use their own bodies as guinea pigs in order to develop their own anesthesia methods, and even suffered mental illness as a result, in order to eliminate the suffering of others. Through their suffering, they gave hope to humanity.
Suffering is an integral part of human history, but so are human efforts to overcome it. The development of anesthesia is more than just a medical advancement; it symbolizes the human will to overcome suffering and the sacrifices made in the process. Thanks to their efforts, we are now able to live with less pain, which is one of the most important human achievements. But the fight to reduce suffering is far from over. Modern medicine has come a long way, but many people still live in pain, and this presents new challenges.
Today, we are trying to manage pain in a variety of ways, not just with anesthesia. For example, patients with chronic pain are treated with a combination of medication, physical therapy, and psychotherapy, and various nerve blocks and surgical procedures are being developed. Efforts are also being made to reduce mental distress. New treatments are being researched to address mental conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as part of an attempt to understand and manage pain more comprehensively.
Beyond simply eliminating pain, there is also a growing body of research on how to deal with and embrace it. Eastern philosophy teaches us to accept suffering as a part of life and that we can grow from it. Buddhism explores the causes of suffering and offers practices such as mindfulness meditation as a way to address it. This approach is part of an effort to find ways to live with suffering, rather than simply avoid it.
The issue of suffering also has important social and ethical implications. As life-prolonging technologies advance, there is a growing debate about how to manage the suffering of terminally ill patients. Bioethics seeks to minimize suffering while maintaining patient dignity, and approaches such as hospice and palliative care are examples of this. It’s not just about eliminating suffering, but a comprehensive approach that takes into account the quality of human life.
After all, dealing with pain is a matter of human life. Pain is an important factor that alerts us to danger, helps us survive, and sometimes makes us grow. But at the same time, it is also a painful experience that we want to avoid. This dual nature of pain complicates the way humans treat it. We often find ourselves in a contradictory position, trying to eliminate pain, but also trying to learn from it.
The invention of anesthesia has fundamentally changed our approach to pain, but it hasn’t completely eliminated it, and we still live with it. Perhaps this is because pain is an essential part of human existence. How we deal with pain determines the quality of our lives, and understanding and managing it can enrich our lives.
Suffering is inevitably present in our lives, but it also has the potential to help us grow and develop. A deeper understanding of suffering gives us the power to accept it and turn it into something positive. We should view suffering not as something to be avoided, but as an important factor that can lead us to better ourselves.
In this way, the way we deal with suffering is not just an individual issue, but can extend to society as a whole. How we understand suffering and how we react to it shapes our social values and ethics. Therefore, a deeper understanding of suffering and finding appropriate responses to it is an important task for the betterment of our society.
The study and understanding of suffering must continue in the future, so that we can find hope in the midst of suffering and move toward a better future. Suffering is a reality we cannot avoid, but there is so much we can learn from it. It is this learning that will allow us to grow beyond our suffering to a higher level.
By looking beyond the pain and seeing the hope and growth that lies beyond, we can move forward through it today.
