Future historians will wonder why, despite the risks, society persisted in its warm relationship with the cigarette; by the end of the century global consumption was still rising. The 1995 symposium at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine not only examined tobacco's connection with health, but the varied attitudes towards smoking, which have included regarding it as 'manly', relaxing, fashionable - and decadent. A particular feature was a witness seminar attended not only by those who had made the initial discovery but by those with a crucial role in promoting public awareness...

Oh, you hurt me, Sir! ...are you going to do it again? - A patient, 1832 For Fear of Pain offers a social history of the operating room in Britain during the final decades of painful surgery. It asks profound questions: how could surgeons operate upon conscious patients? How could patients submit? It presents a revisionist view of surgery, hygiene, nursing, military and naval surgery and the introduction of anaesthesia. For Fear of Pain seeks to unite the clinical with the human. Drawing on fresh evidence, it offers powerful insights into the experience of painful surgery. It is populated by...