"The crucial role of psychological and environmental factors in causing pain in a significant number of patients only recently received attention. As a consequence, there has emerged a sketch plan of pain apparatus with its receptors, conducting fibers, and its standard function which is to be applicable to all circumstances. But... in doing so, medicine has overlooked the fact that the activity of this apparatus is subject to the a constantly changing influence of the mind."

John Bonica Medicine See all quotes by John Bonica →

React to this quote

More by John Bonica

“What the hell kind of conclusion can you come to there? The most important thing, from the patient's perspective, they don't talk about.”

“I have declared war on pain.”

“No medical school has a pain curriculum...”

“Nearly one-third of the population has persistent or recurrent chronic pain—and of those, one-half to two-thirds are either partially or totally disabled for periods of days, weeks, or months, and sometimes permanently.”

“Pain—one of the most pressing issues of out time.”

“The proper management of pain remains, after all, the most important obligation, the main objective, and the crowning achievement of every physician.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Before going any further may we take it that the object of art is to obtain a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses and human faculties – of that, in fact, which is spiritual? And th…"

— Ralph Vaughan Williams

Music1872–1958

#art

"But I do believe that there are basic values that we all share. And one of those values is that countries work best when everybody has a voice that can be respected, and that the press is able to repo…"

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#freedom

"All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development—in which they were transferred from theology to the the…"

— Carl Schmitt

Literature1888–1985

#philosophy