This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on ISI (2)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Pain  • End-of-life Care/ Palliative Medicine  • Alert me on articles by topic

Catherine D. DeAngelis, MD, MPH

JAMA. 2003;290:2480-2481.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

One of the greatest treasures in The Vatican Museum is the Laocon, a sculpture from 25 BC of the Trojan priest Laocon and his 2 sons depicting his mighty but futile struggle with sea snakes.¹ The writhing figure and facial expression of Laocon is the epitome of physiognomic pain (see Patient Page). Anyone who has ever experienced pain can immediately identify with the agony depicted.

Pain is an ageless, universal phenomenon, the history of which is briefly described in this issue of THE JOURNAL by Meldrum.² It is safe to assume that humankind has been trying to understand and treat pain since the beginning of human existence. To wit, the articles published in this theme issue of THE JOURNAL were selected from more than 150 papers submitted in response to the call for papers in November 2002.³ These articles cover several methods . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Author Affiliation: Dr DeAngelis is Editor, JAMA.