The secularization of pain
by
Caton D.
Anesthesiology. 1985 Apr;62(4):493-501

ABSTRACT

After Morton's demonstration in the Ether Dome of the Massachusetts General Hospital, anesthesia for surgery was accepted around the world at a speed unusually fast for any medical or scientific innovation. However, the concept of surgical anesthesia had been rejected on four occasions during the preceding 40 years. The rapid acceptance of anesthesia in 1846 appears to have had a political and social basis as well as medical. Two factors are particularly important. First was a change in the perception of disease and pain; both lost religious connotations and became biologic phenomena as part of a process of secularization that affected all aspects of Western society. Second was the growth of a sense of well-being and progress, which imbued patients and physicians alike with confidence in their ability to control natural processes. During the last half century, pain has remained secular, but the confidence in both progress and the ability to control nature may have diminished.

QEEG
People
Cocaine
Eternal pain?
Horace Wells
Nitrous oxide
William Morton
Seishu Hanaoka
Brain microtubules
General anaesthetics
Obstetric anaesthesia
Molecular mechanisms
'My beloved chloroform'
Contemporary anaesthesia
Advice from anaesthesiologists
Countdown to the anaesthetic revolution
Volatile anaesthetics immobilise sensitive plant

Refs
HOME
HedWeb
Future Opioids
BLTC Research
Paradise-Engineering
The Hedonistic Imperative
MDMA: Utopian Pharmacology

The Good Drug Guide
The Responsible Parent's Guide
To Healthy Mood Boosters For All The Family