This is a revised and expanded edtion of a classic in palliative medicine, originally published in 1991. With three added chapters and a new preface summarizing our progress in the area of pain management, this is a must-hve for those in palliative medicine and hospice care.

The obligation of physicians to relieve human suffering stretches back into antiquity. But what exactly, is suffering? One patient with metastic cancer of the stomach, from which he knew he would shortly die, said he was not suffering. Another, someone who had been operated on for a mior problem--in little pain and...