Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants

This autobiography transmits a healthy respect for, and new understanding of, the body's most basic warning system: pain. Seattle surgeon Brand was born in India in 1914 to British missionary parents. His childhood gave him an Indian perspective on pain as one of life's unavoidable challenges. After attending medical school in England during WW II, he returned to India and discovered that insensitivity to pain in lepers, and also in people with nerve disorders, alcoholism and other conditions, put them in constant peril of injuries and wounds. Continuing his work at a Louisiana leprosarium, Brand also opened a foot clinic for diabetics and innovated simple procedures that, if widely adopted, could eliminate thousands of unnecessary amputations in diabetics diagnosed with ``nonhealing'' foot ulcers. Brand, who collaborated with coauthor Yancey on Fearfully and Wonderfully Made , offers practical, wise advice on coping with, and learning from, physical pain as well as grief or emotional trauma. (Oct.)