SOMETIMES a good slap can ease the pain. Some nurses give patients a
four-fingered slap before injecting them, so Marcus Pohl and his colleagues at
the University of Marburg wanted to see if this had any therapeutic value.
They injected 77 patients. After each injection, the volunteers rated their
pain. They found that slapping markedly cut the pain (Neurology, vol
54, p 1201). Large nerve fibres feeling the slap may prevent small nerve fibres
from picking up the pain—or the patients may simply be distracted.
