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Ten historical extracts are quoted to show that the problems of jargon and indifferent English in scientific and medical writings have been with us for a long time. One improvement is that criticisms printed in the correspondence columns of medical journals have become less abusive.

Although deaths that take place during the course of an operation are commonly called "Death under the Anaesthetic", they did occur before the advent of anaesthesia and in 1824 Dupuytren listed seven posssible causes. Thirty-three reported cases are mentioned and compared with Dupuytren's list. Air embolism was the commonest cause. The last survey in 1956 suggested that anaesthesia was entirely responsible for about 60 per cent of cases and surgery for 10 per cent.

The anaesthetic and analgesic properties of alcohol have been known for several thousand years, but there is little evidence that surgeons were employing it frequently for these purposes in the days before the discovery of reliable inhalation anaesthesia. Its main use was as a stimulant for resuscitation. Attempts to introduce its use into anaesthetic practice in this century have not been successful.