Pain may be defined as suffering or distress in the body. Most animals, as well as people, can feel pain. Pain is one of man's oldest enemies, and man tries hard to avoid pain whenever possible. Pain is also a great friend of man, however, because it is the body's way of reporting disease, infection, or injury of certain body parts. A person who can feel no pain lives a life of constant danger. Such a person might even die because of an infection he did not find out about in time to see a doctor.
Most pain is detected in the body by thin, bare, and finely-branching nerve endings in the skin and internal organs of the body. These pain receivers are like a very finely-divided electric wire. Feelings of pain are carried as tiny electric impulses along the nerves up through the spinal cord to the brain. Pain is a very personalized sensation. Intensity of pain varies greatly in different persons and even in the same person at different times. No one can really know the intensity of pain felt by another person. Man has made great progress in his battle against pain. Doctors today have over 1,000 different pain killers, or analgesics.
