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Edited by Keith Sykes and John Bunker.
224 pp, $26.95.
London, UK, Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2007.
ISBN-13 978-1-8531-5674-8.

JAMA. 2007;298(21):2551-2552.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

A man, screaming in agony, is held down on an operating table by 5 others while the surgeon amputates his left leg above the knee. The cover of Sykes and Bunker's book reproduces a late 18th-century painting depicting preanesthetic surgery, as iconic for that era as the modern, high-tech aseptic operating theater staffed with specialized professionals is for today. Between the two is a sharp break—the introduction of inhalation anesthesia in 1846. For all its problems, a soporific gas had the potential to end the suffering represented in the painting. And it did, soon silencing the gainsayers who regarded pain as essential to healing or childbirth and leaving a trail of priority disputes in its wake.

Figure. Portrait of William T. G. Morton, an American dentist and physician, who performed the first successful demonstration of ether as an inhalation anesthetic during a surgical procedure at the Massachusetts General Hospital on . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Helen Bynum, PhD, Reviewer
Shadingfield, United Kingdom
helen1bynum@fsmail.net