Includes bibliographical references (p. [503]-527) and index.

A gift of the gods -- The grape and the poppy -- Roots, barks, fruit, and leaves -- Pain denied -- Pain ignored -- The heresies -- Healing and holiness -- Islam -- The age of the cathedrals -- Pain exalted -- Rebirth, rediscovery, and reform -- Going to war -- Foundations -- Heavenly dreams -- Animal magnetism -- Pneumatic medicine -- Laughing gas -- The terror of the knife -- Hospital disease -- To the threshold -- A gentleman from the South -- "This Yankee dodge" -- In Gower Street -- And beyond -- Chloroform -- The shape of dreams -- Mr. Anaesthetist -- Conflicting views -- The rights of pain -- Who needs an anaesthetic? -- The new physiology -- The new pathology -- The acute abdomen -- Old drugs, new drugs -- The bark of the willow -- Cocaine -- High Victorian pain -- The power of pain control -- Seminal years -- The gift of St. Barbara -- Tic douloureux -- Twilight sleep -- Dolorism -- Renoir -- Pills and poisons -- The surgery of pain -- The schism -- Pain mechanisms -- Pain clinics -- Hospice.