The John C. Liebeskind
History of Pain Collection

UCLA History of Pain Project

What's New

Antikamnia Calendar (1900 = 2007) The Antikamnia ("Opposed to Pain") Chemical Company of St. Louis, Missouri produced several calendars illustrated with "Skeleton Sketches" -- bizarre series based on the skull-obsessed watercolors of local physician-artist Louis Crucius. The calendar for 1900 matches 2007's day-for-day! Recently-acquired copies of the English- and French-language calendars were scanned and are available here as PDFs and JPEGs. Physical Pain in Early Modern Culture October 2007 The experience of pain, far from being a purely bodily sensation, is powerfully mediated by cultural belief systems. The early modern period is one of most important eras in the history of pain in Western Europe. For example, the origins of modern Western attitudes towards pain as meaningless are partly to be found in the Reformation era, when Protestant theologians attempted to redefine and circumscribe the spiritual meaning of physical suffering, and rejected late medieval assumptions about pain. In late medieval religious culture, physical suffering was seen as a way of participating in the Passion of Christ, or as a form of ‘purgatorial suffering’ that could contribute to salvation. Reformation theologians, by contrast, downplayed the theological significance of physical suffering, and saw Christ's self-sacrifice as a unique and complete event, from which humans were excluded. This often highly ambivalent and piecemeal transformation was only one among a range of developments within early modern notions of pain, whose roots frequently go back to the later medieval period. This conference will investigate these developments from a range of different angles, and from an international as well as interdisciplinary perspective. The editors welcome articles on theology, humanism (for example on the humanist interest in Stoicism), medicine (the impact of anatomy on conceptions of pain, or the growing separation between medical and theological notions of pain), print culture (the impact of the printed book on our understanding of the body), visual culture (representations of the Passion in early modern art) and literary texts (pain in devotional verse, or the role of pain in the warrior ethos of epic poetry). This list is not exhaustive, and the editors are specifically interested in essays which investigate the interrelations between the various fields sketched here. Conference papers will be published in volume 12 of Brill's Intersections series, scheduled to appear in 2008. For more information about Intersections, see http://www.brill.nl. For more information, contact: Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen University of Leiden Department of English PO Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands e-mail: j.van.dijkhuizen@let.leidenuniv.nl

Archives and Personal Papers Awards and Recognition Contact us Exhibitions Internet Resources John C. Liebeskind Biography

Mission and Activities Oral Histories Personnel Presentations Programs Publications

The goal of the UCLA History of Pain Project is to promote and ensure the study of the history of pain research and pain therapy in the post-World War II era, in particular, the origins, growth, and development of the international, interdisciplinary pain field. Its major initiatives to achieve this goal are the creation of the John C. Liebeskind History of Pain Collection at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA and the active dissemination of information about the Collection and the history of pain to appropriate audiences.

The Liebeskind History of Pain Collection includes:

• Oral histories with scientists, physicians, and other health professionals in the field of pain, and with chronic pain patients. Forty have been completed of the core collection of sixty interviews. These include interviews with leading pain scholars and clinicians such as John Bonica, Kathleen Foley, Ainsley Iggo, Ronald Melzack, Cicely Saunders, Richard Sternbach, and Patrick Wall. Master copies of the tapes and transcripts are available in the Biomedical Library after final review by the oral authors.

• Personal papers of pain pioneers and selected leaders in the pain field such as John J. Bonica (1917-1994), William K. Livingston (1892-1966) and William Noordenbos (1910-1990).

• Archival records of major pain organizations, including the American Pain Society (APS), the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and the American Academy of Pain Management (APPM). Document collections are processed according to archival standards at the Biomedical Library and finding aids are developed to aid scholar access.

• Group interviews with leaders in the pain field, recorded on videotape for deposit in the Library. Three group interviews have been completed: "Perspectives on Pain" (1993), "The Bonicas: Passion is the Fuel of Life" (1994), and "Current Issues in Pain Management" (1995)

• Bibliographies of books, journals, and other materials relating to pain in the UCLA Biomedical Library; and listings of source materials available at other libraries and archives.

The Collection is supported by the extensive holdings of the Biomedical Library, which are regularly augmented with accessions of recent publications and classic works on pain.

Project activities include:

• Educational programs, including presentations at scholarly conferences, sponsored workshops, publications in scholarly journals, and curriculum materials, including audiotape, videotape and computer-accessible formats.

• Presentations and publications about the collection and documenting the history of pain.

• Exhibitions, including Relief of Pain and Suffering (1998).

• A guide to Internet Resources for the study of the history of pain research and management.

The project and Collection are co-managed by an historian of science & medicine and the head of the History & Special Collections Division. Staff are assisted in the selection of oral history subjects and document collections by an Advisory Committee of pain professionals and by input from the major pain organizations.
 

Co-Directors

Katharine E.S. Donahue, MLS
Head, History & Special Collections Division
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA
Los Angeles, California 90095-1798 USA
Tel: 310/825-6940
Fax: 310/825-0465
Email: kdonahue@library.ucla.edu

Marcia L. Meldrum, PhD
Department of History
6265 Bunche Hall, UCLA
Los Angeles, California 90095-1473
Tel: 310/825-3888
Fax: 310/206-9630
Email: mlynnmel@earthlink.net or meldrum@history.ucla.edu
 

Archivist

Russell A. Johnson, MA, MLS
Archivist & Cataloger, History & Special Collections Division
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA
Los Angeles, California 90095-1798 USA
Tel: 310/825-6940
Fax: 310/825-0465
Email: rjohnson@library.ucla.edu
 

Archivist for the William H. Sweet, MD, DSc Collection

Cherry N.D. Williams, MA, MLIS
Archivist & Cataloger, History & Special Collections Division
Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA
Los Angeles, California 90095-1798 USA
Tel: 310/825-6940
Fax: 310/825-0465
Email: cndw@library.ucla.edu