The Coming of Anaesthesia.

The article discusses the history of the use of anaesthesia in surgery and medicine. It examines several historical precedents leading up to the first use of a general anaesthetic during an operation at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846. The author also comments on ideas concerning medicinal uses of laughing gas and carbon dioxide and addresses Scottish physician James Young Simpson's administration of chloroform during childbirth. Protests against the use of anaesthesia, particularly from a religious perspective, are also considered.