Pain is a sensation felt from the introduction of stimuli to the
human body. It is an unpleasant and distressing sensation, although not for a
select few. The sensation of pain is
measured relatively. Different people have varying levels of tolerance to pain,
and so a set standard for measuring pain
is almost impossible to calculate. Of course there is generally a distinct
difference between receiving a light punch and getting hit by a car.
The word pain takes its roots from a variety of older languages. From the
Anglo-Norman paine, peigne, penne, pain,
pein, peyene to the Middle French peine,
paine, peinne, pene, there seems to be no end to the lexical iterations of
the same word. Common phrases such as “upon pain
of”, or “to take pains” also have
their sources in Old French; they are “sur peine de” (c1340) and “prendre la
peine” (c1461-9) respectively. Pain
can also be used as a verb. In this context it means to exert or inflict
something painful. For example “it pained her to write this gloss” is an
adequate representation of the verbal form of pain. Like the noun pain, the
verb also has similar roots, peiner,
painer, pener, and pener. Unexpectedly, pain is also the name of a kind of bread, or to be more specific, a
type of rissole. This definition of the word originates from the classical
Latin pānis bread. Think panini.
Historically, Aristotle believed
that pain was the sensation caused
by evil spirits entering a body after an injury. Hippocrates hypothesized that pain was instead caused by an imbalance
of the various vital fluids in the body.
Medically speaking there are
three types of pain – nociceptive,
neuropathic and psychogenic. Nociceptive and neuropathic pain is pain that is
generally associated to be physical, while psychogenic pain is emotional and mental. Because of the fact that all three
kinds of pain are vastly different,
there is no common ground to compare each of them. A sufferer of acute
nociceptive pain may feel extreme
agony, but as soon as the stimulus causing that pain is removed, the pain
immediately subsides. This is opposed to sufferers of emotional trauma or long
term illnesses that may or may not ever heal. How can you compare which is
worse? Especially since psychogenic sufferers are often denounced by some
medical professionals who believe a mental source of pain isn’t real.
Pain is also separated into two different time categories, acute
and chronic pain; the former being short term, and the latter long term. A
curious form of chronic pain is
called phantom pain. It is pain that
occurs in a limb or organ that is no longer a physical part of the body.
Phantom pain is frequently found in
amputees who experience varying levels of discomfort in their missing limb.
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"pain, n1." OED
Online, accessed November 19, 2012, Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/136058?rskey=ukaU0H&result=3&isAdvanced=false#eid
"pain, n2." OED
Online, accessed November 19, 2012, Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/136057?rskey=ukaU0H&result=2&isAdvanced=false#eid
"pain, v." OED Online,
accessed November 19, 2012, Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/136058?rskey=ukaU0H&result=3&isAdvanced=false#eid
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