The belief that women report more somatic complaints than men is not n
ew. Many centuries B.C., the Egyptians and the Greeks already made an
association between female pains and hysteria, which is Greek for ''wa
ndering womb.'' Despite the commonly held belief that women are more s
ensitive to pain than men, the issue of sex differences in pain has re
ceived little attention from the scientific community in general. It i
s the merit of BERKLEY to draw our attention to this large gap in our
scientific knowledge.