One of the fastest-growing schools of therapy in the U.S. is based on pain-killing as the complete cure for many ills. Its chief method: a comparatively new technique of anesthesia known as "nerve block." Out last week was a new text (Conduction Anesthesia; Lippincott; $15) which held that nerve block is often the cure for sprains & fractures, hiccups, headaches, frostbite, sciatica, neuralgia, a score of other painful disorders.
The massive work (961 pages) is based on researches by topnotch medicos on both sides of the Atlantic (notably those of the late Dr. George P. Pitkin in New Jersey hospitals).*
The theory...