BOOK:
OPERATIONS WITHOUT PAIN
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BOOK:
OPERATIONS WITHOUT PAIN
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Last Updated 29 Oct 2006 |
Source: Stephanie J. Snow. Operations without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain.Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. ISBN: 1403934452 DESCRIPTION
AUTHOR Stephanie Snow is a Wellcome Research Fellow at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester.
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Inhalational
anaesthesia was the first medical and scientific technique to become a
legitimate means of pain relief. Its introduction to medicine in 1846 sparked
one of the most intense public debates of the period. It challenged religious
principles and at its center posed one of medicine's fundamental questions: risk
versus benefit of medical intervention. This book explains how the introduction
of anaesthesia intertwines with a wide variety of other nineteenth century
medical and cultural issues: the growing elitism of surgery, the emerging
professionalism of medicine, the popular and progressive culture of science and
the secularization of society.