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Sylvia A. Lack, MD
Hospice, Inc. New Haven, Conn

JAMA. 1975;232(11):1127.

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

To the Editor.—

Pharmacologic control of the unpleasant symptoms associated with a terminal disease is a medical aspect of dying that is far from being worked to death (229:1909, 1974). Dying patients still endure severe pain, and these sufferers are, unhappily, found even in our most eminent hospitals and nursing homes.¹ Terminal pain can be controlled, as demonstrated by Saunders² and Twycross³ in English centers such as St. Christopher's and St. Joseph's Hospices.

If the current public interest in death would spread to the medical profession, stimulating development of new clinical skills and research directed at palliative care, much distress, currently a disgrace to modern medicine, would be relieved. Far from dying being worked to death, it is time the experiences of the English hospices were melded into the American system to provide fresh help and insights in a greatly neglected area of health provision. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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