Blessed Days Of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed The World

Author: Stephanie J. Snow

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $32.68 AUD
  • : 9780192805898
  • : Oxford University Press
  • : Oxford University Press
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  • : 0.182
  • : October 2009
  • : 196mm X 129mm X 13mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 31.95
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Stephanie J. Snow
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  • : Paperback
  • :
  • :
  • : English
  • : 617.96
  • :
  • :
  • : 240
  • : History of medicine; Anaesthetics; Popular science
  • : Illustrations
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Barcode 9780192805898
9780192805898

Description

Among all the great discoveries and inventions of the nineteenth century, few offer us a more fascinating insight into Victorian society than the discovery of anaesthesia. Now considered to be one of the greatest inventions for humanity since the printing press, anaesthesia offered pain-free operations, childbirth with reduced suffering, and instant access to the world beyond consciousness. And yet, upon its introduction, Victorian medics, moralists, clergymen, and scientists, were plunged into turmoil. This vivid and engaging account of the early days of anaesthesia unravels some key moments in medical history: from Humphry Davy's early experiments with nitrous oxide and the dramas that drove the discovery of ether anaesthesia in America, to the outrage provoked by Queen Victoria's use of chloroform during the birth of Prince Leopold. And there are grisly ones too: frequent deaths, and even notorious murders. Interweaved throughout the story, a fascinating social change is revealed. For anaesthesia caused the Victorians to rethink concepts of pain, sexuality, and the links between mind and body.
From this turmoil, a profound change in attitudes began to be realised, as the view that physical suffering could, and should, be prevented permeated through society, most tellingly at first in prisons and schools where pain was used as a method of social control. In this way, the discovery of anaesthesia left not only a medical and scientific legacy that changed the world, but a compassionate one too.

Reviews

This is...an engaging account of one of the most important medical innovations of the 19th century. Nancy Durrant, The Times Snow also leads into anaesthesia's more profound implications for our understanding of consciousness. Nancy Durrant, The Times

Table of contents

1. Introduction; 2. Discoveries; 3. Anaesthesia in Action; 4. Women, Sex and Suffering; 5. On Battlefields; 6. The Dark Side of Chloroform; 7. Changed Understandings of Pain; 8. Into the Twentieth Century and Beyond; Endnotes; Further reading