THE RELIEF OF PAIN BY NERVE SECTION

The most distressing symptom of any disease is pain. If pain is present it is always the cause of bitter complaint. We can struggle along with disability or deformity provided it is painless, but with the onset of pain we soon plead for relief. And since relief can often be afforded by relatively simple surgical procedures directed against the sensory pathways leading from the areas involved, the sufferer should always be advised that this is possible. He can then decide for himself whether his pain is of sufficient severity to require operative intervention.

Since the relief of pain in trigeminal neuralgia is frequently practiced in the clinic with which I am associated, I became interested in other conditions causing distress within the sensory distribution of the fifth pair of cranial nerves.¹ Cancer of the face is one of these. Because it primarily attracted attention, and because success here led