Situated between the history of pain, history of childhood and history of emotions, this innovative work explores cultural understandings of children's pain, from the 1870s to the end of the Second World War. Focusing on British medical discourse, Leticia Fernandez-Fontecha examines the relationship between the experience of pain and its social and medical perception, looking at how pain is felt, seen and performed in contexts such as the hospital, the war nursery and the asylum. By means of a comparative study of views in different disciplines - physiology, paediatrics, psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis - this work demonstrates the various ways in which the child in pain came to be perceived. This context is vital to understanding current practices and beliefs surrounding childhood pain, and the role that children play in the construction of adult worlds.

Explores the objectification of childhood pain in British medical discourse from the dawn of Darwinism to the welfare state.

About the Author
Leticia Fernandez-Fontecha is a historian, writer, and poet. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Washington and Lee University.

Reviews
'A fine and important book. Through tangled threads of intellectual and medical history, Fernandez-Fontecha finds a way to transform the ineffability of children's pain into a heart-rending presence.' Rob Boddice, author of Knowing Pain: A History of Sensation, Emotion, and Experience
'A stunning, intimate, and sometimes wincing story about pain as experienced by non-verbal infants. Absorbing and unique: it changes the way we think about infants as well as their suffering.' Joanna Bourke, author of The Story of Pain



Book Information
ISBN 9781009558730
Author Leticia Fernandez-Fontecha
Format Hardback
Page Count 263
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press