Pain (38 page)

37
. For “the neurosurgeon plays …,” see “Relief of Pain Due to Cancer of Head and Neck,” Thomas E. Douglas Jr., MD, Seattle, WA,
General Practitioner
, November 1952, 65–70; for “there is no fine …,” quoted in N. S. Haseltine, “Brain Surgery Is Successful in Easing Pain,”
Washington Post
, November 26, 1947, 13; see Walter Freeman, “Psychosurgery for Pain,”
Southern Medical Journal
; see also Jack Pressman,
Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of American Medicine
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); for “pain ceases to be bothersome …,” see Roy Gibbons, “Search for Pain Killers,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, January 30, 1955, 14; see also “Brain Surgery Successful in Relief of Pain,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, April 19, 1947, 12.

38
. Haseltine, “Brain Surgery,” 13.

39
. For an excellent study of psychosurgery and Freeman's arguments against the notion that lobotomy created “vegetables,” see Pressman,
Last Resort
.

40
. David Serlin,
Replaceable You: Engineering the Body in Postwar America
(Chicago: University of Chicago, 2004), 4; for “to cut the pain tracts …” and “from prolonged suffering,” see William L. Laurence, “Pain Relief Cited in Brain Surgery,”
New York Times
, October 7, 1950, 37; see also “Body Pain Is Ended by Brain Surgery,”
New York Times
, June 17, 1948, 27; and Howard W. Blakeslee, “MDs Split on Right to Tinker with Brain,”
Washington Post
, March 16, 1947, B7; see also Pressman,
Last Resort
; for “so that the pain …,” see “Personality Shift in Laid to Surgery,”
New York Times
, December 14, 1947, 51.

41
. For “unbearably severe …” and “in the aged …,” see William L. Laurence, “Pain Relief Cited in Brain Surgery,”
New York Times
, October 7, 1950, 37. They used the technique on a wide range of people—those with a few weeks to live but also those with longer than six months. Reflecting a few years later on what was learned from the less extreme neurosurgical treatment for pain, the cordotomy, a leading neurology researcher, P. W. Nathan, noted that “patients have been seen, who before this operation had to be in hospital and on large doses of morphine, amidone, or pethidine, and were in bed all the time. After the operation their pain could be controlled by mild analgesics … and they were able to be at home, look after their children, cook, and run their homes.” P. W. Nathan, “Results of Antero-lateral Cordotomy for Pain in Cancer,”
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
26 (1963): 362; for “cutting the channels …,” see “Two Doctors Report Surgery on Brain Ends Dope Addiction,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, May 3, 1948, 2.

42
. For “a sensation rather than …” and “interesting effects on personality,” see William S. Barton, “Brain Surgery Seen as Aid for Christine,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 6, 1953, A1; for “certain aspects of personality …,” see Asenath Petrie, “Some Psychological Aspects of Pain and the Relief of Suffering,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
86 (1960): 13. These aspects of personality transformation must be understood as part of the postwar ideal, touching on all aspects of pathologized identity. As David Serlin observed, here was a society fascinated with the promise of biomedical transformation (through biology, surgery, medicine, and prosthetic engineering) to build a better body and society. Serlin,
Replaceable You
; see also Joanne Meyerowitz,
How Sex Changed: A History of
Transsexuality in the United States
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

43
. For “destructive procedures,” see Bonica,
Management of Pain
, 164; for “tranquilizers, like alcohol …,” see Ian Stevenson, “Tranquilizers and the Mind,”
Harper's Magazine
215 (1957): 21–27; noted another publication, “Happiness pills and elixirs continue to be sought by those who want the satisfaction of a good life without a life that is good. Instead of grappling with the causes of unhappiness they seek merely to remove the symptoms.” “Happiness Pills Are No Answer,”
Christian Century
, September 12, 1956, 1044.

44
.
Compensation for Service-Connected Disabilities: A General Analysis of Veterans' and Military Disability Benefits, Mortality Rates, Disability Standards in Federal Programs, Workmen's Compensation, and Rehabilitation. A Report on Veterans' Benefits in the United States by The President's Commission on Veterans' Pensions
. Staff Report no. 8, part A, August 3, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), 8.

45
. Ibid., 8.

46
. Another unnamed physician noted that, “of the chronic diseases, I would certainly exclude arteriosclerosis, arthritis,” and other such ailments that were too often presumed to be service connected.
The Veterans' Administration Disability Rating Schedule: Historical Development and Medical Appraisal, A Report on Veterans' Benefits in the United States by the President's Commission on Veterans' Pensions
. Staff Report no. 8, part B, June 18, 1956 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956): 122–24.

47
. Ibid., 227–29.

48
. Ibid.; see Bradley Commission Papers, folder 34: Snell, Albert M., p. 16: “These are imponderables which cannot be measured and to include them in the present framework would hopelessly complicate the problem of rating boards.”

49
. Bradley Commission Papers, folder 34: Snell, Albert M., p. 16.

50
. Bradley Commission Papers, box 29, folder 82: Cleveland, Mather.

51
. Bradley Commission Papers, box 28, folder 55: Canfield, Norton.

52
. Bradley Commission Papers, box 27, folder 31: Burrage, Walter S.

53
. “I believe that a man should be a soldier throughout life and not be downed because of some remunerative disability that he can compensate for.” Bradley Commission Papers, box 28, folder 47: Bunnell, Sterling.

54
. Omar N. Bradley, Clarence G. Adamy, and William J. Donovan, et al.,
Veterans' Benefits in the United States: A Report to President by the President's Commission on Veterans' Pensions, The Bradley Commission
(Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), 135.

55
. For “scars about the face …,” see Bradley Commission Papers, box 30, folder: Veterans Administration, 101–3. (physician unnamed); for “the compensation of wound scars …” and “loss of physical integrity …,”
Veterans' Benefits
, 164.

56
. All citations from Bradley Commission Papers. For “some critics …,” see box 88, folder; Basic Philosophy of Pensions Work File, p. 11; for “the yardsticks …,” box 28, folder 69: Hampton, Oscar P., Jr.; for “in order to conserve …,” see box 27, folder 29: Morgan, Hugh J.; for “I doubt if …,” see box 28, folder 59: Kuhn, Hedwig S.; Others also defended the system, but one Virginia physician believed that “the Veterans Administration is more liberal in their rating policy than comparable state agencies or liability insurance companies.” Medical survey with unnamed VA surgeon, p. 16. Box 30, folder: Veterans Administration, 93–97.

57
. All citations from Bradley Commission Papers. For “modern developments …,” see box 27, folder 17: Minor, John M.; for Bauer quotes, see box 27, folder 12: Bauer, Walter; see also introductory remarks from Robert Sidney Schwab to commission, with his survey. Box 27, folder 10: Schwab, Robert Sidney.

58
. Funigiello,
Chronic Politics
, 93. As Funigiello noted, the aged were a high-risk group from the standpoint of the rising private insurance industry, locked out of the ability to purchase health insurance. “Six million aged lived in families earning less than $3,000 a year … and most of those (7 out of 10) had no health insurance” (98). Attempting to smooth political feathers, Eisenhower insisted that the new disability benefit for the elderly should be considered separate from retirement and survivors' benefits, thus “a separate trust fund was established … in an effort to minimize the effects of the special problems in this field on the other parts of the program”; for this quote and for “rehabilitate the disabled …,” see “Statement by the President upon Signing the Social Security Amendments of 1956. August 1, 1956,”
Public Papers: Eisenhower
(1956), 639.

59
.
Social Security Amendments of 1954: Report of the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives to Accompany H.R. 9366
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1954). Criticizing a 1954 court ruling, one legal scholar noted that “insofar as the court relied upon the judgments of the physicians that the claimant was ‘disabled' or ‘unemployable,' it overlooked the obvious intent of Congress to guard against the subjective judgment of the plaintiff's personal physicians.” Landon H. Rowland, “Judicial Review of Disability Determinations,”
Georgetown Law Review
52 (1963–1964): 63; President's Commission on Veterans' Pensions,
Compensation for Service-Connected Disabilities: A General Analysis of Veterans and Military Disability Benefits,
Mortality Rates, Disability Standards in Federal Programs, Workmen's Compensation, and Rehabilitation
, Staff Report, no. 8, part A (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), 8; for “requests for consideration …,” see “Appeals Procedure,”
Hearings of House of Representatives Subcommittee on Administration of the Social Security Laws of the Committee on Ways and Means
, Monday, November 9, 1959 (Statement of Joseph E. McElvain, Director of the Office of Hearings and Appeals), 644.

60
. Orr, “To Socialize Medicine.”

61
. Ibid.

62
. Stavisky, “Where Does the Veteran Stand Today?,” 131, 132.

63
. For “it is difficult …,” see Louis Orr, “Answer to Letter from Robert A. Bell,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
164 (June 1, 1957): 574; for “the factor that …” and “offered their maximum …,” see Robert A. Bell, “VA Medical Care Program,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
164 (June 1, 1957): 572–74.

64
. For “the performance of the duties …,” see Orr, “Answer to Letter from Robert A. Bell,” 579; The report saw “new general social security programs as increasingly meeting the economic needs of veterans as well as nonveterans.” Michael March (technical adviser to the commission), “President's Commission on Veterans Pensions: Recommendations,”
Social Security Bulletin
13 (August 1956): 13.

65
. For “spoiled identity,” see Erving Goffman,
Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963); for “problems of psychogenic pain,” see Henry Albronda, “Psychological Aspects of Pain,”
California Medicine
86 (May 1957): 296.

66
. Albronda, “Psychological Aspects of Pain.” For broader discussion of postwar psychiatry and psychiatric theory, see Gerald Grob,
From Asylum to Community: Mental Health Policy in Modern America
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

67
. Albronda, “Psychological Aspects of Pain.”

68
. Barbara Wooten, “Sick or Sinful?”
Time
, June 11, 1956, 50.

69
. For arthritis evidence, see “The No. 1 Crippler,”
New York Times
, September 14, 1959, 28; and “Arthritis Quacks Scored in Report: $250,000,000 Found Spent Yearly on Treatments,”
New York Times
, November 10, 1959, 49; see “Don't-Give-A-Damn-Pills,”
Time
, February 27, 1956, 98.

70
. Melvin M. Belli, “The Adequate Award,”
California Law Review
39 (March 1951): 1. Jim Herron Zamora, “‘King of Torts' Belli Dead at 88,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, July 10, 1996,
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1996/07/10/NEWS2814.dtl&hw=melvin+belli&sn=004&sc=774
; J. L. Barritt,
“Subjective Complaints in Industrial Injuries,”
California Medicine
87 (August 1957): 79.

71
. For “no one but the patient …,” see Barritt, “Subjective Complaints in Industrial Injuries”; for “to the processes …,” see Keith Wailoo,
Dying in the City of the Blues: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race and Health
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 18; For “distinguish between …,” see J. L. Barritt, “Subjective Complaints in Industrial Injuries.” In Dr. Barritt's view, California legislation made his life easier in one respect: the maximum compensation rate was capped at $40 a week, and so “with an average industrial wage of approximately $90 a week … there is usually no … incentive for an injured person to intentionally prolong his disability.”

72
. For “the increasing attention …,” see D. H. Werden, “Intervertebral Disc Lesions: Surgical Treatment, End Results, Disability Ratings and Cost in Industrial Accident Injuries,”
California Medicine
86 (February 1957), 84–92; Byron Mork, “Disability under Social Security: Medical Evaluation and Decision as to Rehabilitation,”
California Medicine
87 (October 1957), 256–60.

73
. Louis Lasagna, “Introductory Statement on a Symposium on Pain and Its Relief,”
Journal of Chronic Diseases
4, no. 1 (July 1956): 1–3; see also Louis Lasagna, “The Problem of Pain,”
Time
, July 30, 1956, 32, 34.

74
. Alan Petigny,
The Permissive Society: America, 1941–1965
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).