Why men and women feel pain differently

The discovery of anesthesia in the 19th century, however, destigmatized pain relief, and, feminist activists advocated for a protocol developed in Germany called “twilight sleep,” which involved injections of the opioid morphine and scopolamine (which induces amnesia), to help ameliorate the agony of labor. But the twilight sleep was dangerous, causing many women to become delirious, and it likely contributed to the death of one of its most vocal advocates — referred to as Mrs. Francis X. Carmody in news accounts of the day — in 1915. (The pendulum subsequently swung away from that, with more women opting for births entirely free of analgesia.)