"The continuum—stretching from a pole of "healing through techniques" to the pole of "healing through management"—is not specific to France. ...the gate control theory of pain—had played a crucial role in the development of pain medicine as proposed by John Bonica. The proposals of this anesthetist date from as early as 1944, but only became widely accepted in 1974. ...with the concept of pain clinics launched in 1953 by John Bonica, physicians had access to an organizational model. By the end of the 1970s, this model was widely accepted in the world of pain medicine. It stipulated that lasting pain—chronic pain... should be treated in specific pain clinics or pain centers by multidisciplinary teams... The justification for such a grouping of people stems from Bonica's 1953 book The Management of Pain, where he analyzes the complexity of problems associated with intractable pain that has resisted any traditional treatment in a number of disciplines. ...any evaluation of pain must be carried out on both the physical and the psychological level."
John Bonica

January 1, 1970