Operations Without Pain: The Practice and Science of Anaesthesia in Victorian Britain

ISBN-13: 9781403934451 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 286 str.

Stephanie J. Snow

Opis

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.

Recenzje

'Snow's prose is lucid and expressive, her theses insightful, her conclusions illuminating and well supported... This book deserves to become both a standard reference work for students of Victorian medicine and a template for future workers in this field.' - Medical History

'Operations without pain is a meticulously written book that also deals largely with historical aspects of pain...she [Stephanie J. Snow] sheds fascinating light on the medical scenes in America and Victorian Britain.' - Brain

Spis treści

List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction From Enlightenment Philosophies to Victorian Reform, 1790-1846 Altered States Science versus Empiricism Risks of Life and Birth Anaesthesia in London: John Snow's Casebooks In the Name of Safety Conclusion: The History of Anaesthesia Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

O autorze

STEPHANIE SNOW is a Wellcome Research Fellow at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, UK.