Eula Biss: The Pain Scale

The pain scale is a very interesting piece of writing. Through the whole work the author is constantly talking about pain. She talks about ways to measure pain especially. She is does this in very colorful ways. She describes many stages of the wind measurement system. Showing how that system is not just based on the numbers 1-10, but even uses a description as to what a certain scale wind should look act like. At one point during the reading the author says that a couple hundred years before a wind scale was ever created, philosophers would use Dante's Inferno as a basis to make arguments about how pain was felt, and about the specific parameters of hell. 
     The idea of comparing our present day 1-10 scale of pain to people in history trying to define the specific dimensions of hell is a very interesting one. They may seem different but they are in actuality, very similar. Both our 1-10 scale for pain and trying to map hell through a fictional work are addressing the same sort of problem. The problem with trying to base hell off of a fictional book seems pretty obvious; that every measurement you come up with will not be correct because the first piece of information you start with is subjective and not based on any fact. The same is true for the pain scale. When you are choosing from 1-10 the one is based on your pain tolerance and it will vary from person to person, and thus a 10, or any number for that matter, will not be equal if two different people take the same test.
     The author illustrates the subjectivity of the pain scale, and other ways to address pain rather than just through showing other forms of measurements for different things. The wind scale clearly shows that numbers do not provide enough information in themselves, that a description is needed also. It shows that the pain scale would also benefit from a more in depth measuring system. She shows that the pain scale does not allow a patient to offer the doctor enough information into the depth of the situation and the pain which is there.