Re: VMs: Strange disorders

[RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx]

Glen Claston writes, concerning 12th century surgeon John Arderne:

>>What I don't get though is the constant reference by the medical profession 
to the lack of anesthesia in surgery and routine medicine during these 
times.<<

It's necessary to distinguish anesthesia and analgesia here. Opium was 
certainly in use (not sure about Europe) by then to relieve pain, but analgesics are 
nearly useless when you actually start cutting on somebody. For that, the 
patient needs to be put into a sleep-like state (though it is not sleep) called 
anesthesia. No such agents were available until the introduction of the two 
early inhalation anesthetics, ethyl ether and chloroform, around 1845. It was 
inhalation anesthetics, together with aseptic and antiseptic techniques 
introduced later in the 19th century, that made modern surgery possible; until then, it 
was not possible (with a few slightly earlier exceptions) to enter the 
abdomen, the chest, or the skull. - Effective local anesthetics, beginning with 
cocaine, first became available around 1880 but were not really very useful before 
the introduction of lidocaine (Xylocaine Astra) around 1950.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN
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