Table Of ContentVICTORY 
OVER  PAIN 
A History of Anesthesia 
BY  VICTOR  ROBINSON,  M.D. 
SIGMA 
LONDONI  IBOOKS
Ackrwwledgments 
bE 
AUTHOR has been helped in his anesthesia studies by 
the descendants of Samuel Guthrie, discoverer of chloro 
form, particularly by his grandson, Thaddeus Samuel Cham 
berlain; and by the late Carl Koller, discoverer of cocaine 
anesthesia. He is indebted for aid or encouragement to: 
Herbert M. Alexander, who checked the voluminous data 
on the ether controversy in the author's library; Dr. Fred 
erick M. Allen, doubly distinguished for his pioneer achieve 
ments in metabolism and in refrigeration anesthesia; Ger 
bude Annan, keeper of the Rare Book Room of the New 
York Academy of Medicine; Joseph J. Boris, of the Journal 
of the International College of Surgeons; Dr. Miriam Drab 
kin, assistant editor of the Journal of the History of Medi 
cine and Allied Sciences; Dr. Paluel J. Flagg, guiding spirit 
of the Society for the Prevention of Asphyxial Death; Jean 
nette Fleisher; Dr. Edward Hicks Hume; Orrie Lashin; Dr. 
Chauncey D. Leake, Dean of the University of Texas School 
of Medicine, humanist and historian, dreamer and worker 
. in the pharmacology of anesthetics; Dr. Curt Proskauer, 
historian of dentistry; Dr. George Rosen, editor of the Jour 
nal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; Dr. Sey 
mour Schotz, Associate in Anesthesiology, Medical College 
'Vii
viii  Acknowledgments 
of Virginia; Dr. Anne Tjomsland, anesthetist and medical 
historian; Dr. Josiah Charles Trent, surgeon· and medical 
historian; Dr. George Urdang, historian of pharmacy; and 
Dr. Paul Meyer Wood, whose years of hospital work as an 
anesthetist, as secretary of the American Society of Anes 
thetists and of the American Board of AnestheSiology, and 
as chairman of the section of anestheSiology of the Ameri 
can Medical Association have made him a familiar and 
popular figure among the fighters against pain. 
In the chronology of our subject, no event is recorded for 
the year 1883, but it was the natal year of two men who 
were destined to make important contributions to the con 
quest of pain. For permission to dedicate his book to these 
masters of modern anesthesia, the author is grateful to Dr. 
Arthur Ernest Guedel, of the University of Southern Cali 
fornia School of Medicine, and to Dr. Ralph Milton Waters, 
of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. 
The Saturday afternoon visits  of the publisher Henry 
Schuman, accompanied by his associate, Lewis F. Thomp 
son-delightfully prolonged on occasion to the early hours 
of the morning-invariably aroused the hormonic tides of 
authorship.
Contents 
Introduction  xiii 
EARLY  ,DEVELOPMENTS 
1.  Drugs and Dreams  3 
2.  Control of Pain in Antiquity  15 
3.  Anodynes in the Orient  23 
4.  Narcotics in the Middle Ages  27 
5.  The Renaissance  34 
6.  The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries  40 
ON  THE  THRESHOLD 
7.  Humphry Davy  47 
8.  Henry Hill Hickman  56 
9.  Mesmerism in Anesthesin  67 
10.  Before the Discovery  77 
THE  DISCOVERY 
11.  Crawford Williamson Long  83 
12.  Horace Wells  93 
13.  Charles Thomas Jackson  108 
14.  William Thomas Green Morton  119 
15.  The Controversy  134 
THE  RECEPTION  OF  THE  DISCOVERY 
IN  EUROPE 
16.  Robert Liston  141 
17.  Central Europe  150 
18.  France  161 
19.  Nicolai lvanovic~ PirogofJ  167 
i.x
Content8 
CHLOROFORM 
20.  Samuel Guthrie  175 
21.  James Young Simpson  191 
22.  An Anonymous Letter  209 
23.  John Snow  219 
24.  Death as Anesthetist  229 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  LOCAL 
ANESTHESIA 
25.  Beniamin Ward Richardson  237 
26.  Carl Koller  246 
FROM  RAG  AND  BOTTLE 
27.  Techniques  259 
28.  Twilight Sleep  267 
29.  Continuous Caudal Analgesia  278 
30.  Endotracheal Anesthesia  280 
31.  Rectal Anesthesia  288 
32.  Intravenous Anesthesia  291 
33.  Spinal Anesthesia  295 
34.  Refrigeration Anesthesia  298 
35.  Three Twentieth Century Anesthetics  304 
36.  Curare  309 
EPILOGUE 
Musings by the Nameless Monument  317 
SELECTED  AND  ANNOTATED 
323 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS  AND 
335 
INDIVIDUALS
List of Illustrations 
PAGE 
Hellebore  5 
Diffany  6 
Opium  7 
DioscOf'ides receiving a root of the mandrake 
from the Goddess of Discovery  8 
Hemlock  10 
Henbane  11 
Mulberry  12 
Leffuce  13 
Hops  14 
Hypnos  16 
Hashish  18 
Trephining without an anesthetic  32 
The first picture ever made of an amputation  36 
Clamp used for compression anesthesia  43 
. The apparatus for rendering surgical operations painless  147 
An English reaction to the discovery of ether  157 
Surgeon's lancet ring  318 
HALF-TONE  PLATES 
FACING  PAGE 
JohnArdeme  26 
Early use of alcoholic fumes for anesthesia  27 
The healing-master treating varicose veins  42 
A drawing by Rowlandson of an amputation 
without anesthesia  43 
Sir Humphry Davy's gas machine  50 
Sir Humphry Davy  51 
xz
tcii  List of Illustrations 
Henry Hill Hickman experimenting with anesthesia 
on animals  58 
Mesmer practicing animal magnetism  74 
Crawford Williamson Long  82 
Horace Wells  82 
Charles Thomas lackson  82 
William Thomas Green Morton  83 
The first public demonstration of anesthesia 
with ether  114 
Ether Room in the Massachusetts General Hospital and 
the plaque commemorating "the first public demon-
stration of anesthesia'"  115 
A French reaction to the introduction of ether  154 
A French reaction to the introduction of ether  155 
Nicolai Ivanovich PirogofJ  170 
Sir I ames Young Simpson  171 
lohn Snow  218 
Plastic caricature of the first choloroform narcosis 
in Berlin  219 
Sir Beniamin Ward Richardson  234 
Carl Koller  235 
William Stewart Halsted  250 
lames Leonard Coming  251 
Modern anesthesia apparatus: an 8-flowmeter unit of the 
Metric Anesthesia Apparatus  266 
Modern anesthesia apparatus: base and upright model 
of the Metric Anesthesia Apparatus  267 
lames T. Gwathmey, Amo B. Luckhardt, Chauncey D. 
Leake, Ralph M. Waters  274 
Arthur E. Guedel, Rudolph Matas, Paul M. Wood, Fran-
cis M. McMechan  275 
Modern anesthesia apparatus: Texas model of the Metric 
Anesthesia Table  306 
Ether Monument in the Public Garden of Boston  3(J7
Introduction 
LIE 
AUTHOR began an earlier book (The Story of Medi 
cine, 1931) with the line: "The first cry of pain through the 
primitive jungle was the first call for a physician." 
The present volume is devoted exclusively to pain and 
its conquest. When Simpson, one of the foremost fighters 
against pain, was created a baronet in 1866, he adopted as 
his coat-of-arms the rod of Aesculapius with the words 
Victo dolore. The translation of that motto, Victory Over 
Pain, serves as the title of this book. 
The first  operations performed with sharpened stones 
and pointed flints in the shade of rock-shelters or under 
forest trees, have no recorded history, but we know what 
uninvited guest was present. Surgery learned many lessons 
through the ages, but never was it able to banish Pain. The 
screams of the patient which rang in the hairy ears of the 
Stone Age surgeon were heard in the classic period by 
the disciples of Hippocrates, and the undiminished cries 
echoed down the corridors of modem hospitals. All who 
sought release from disease at the point of the knife were 
first compelled to pay homage to Pain. 
One hundred years ago, a vapor in the operating-room 
of the Massachusetts General Hospital blotted out suffer 
x~~z
lCiv  Introduction 
ing from surgery. It was the most beneficent change in the 
history of surgery, and has since been hailed as America's 
greatest gift to mankind. 
In every branch of the healing art, Europe had long been 
the mentor of America. We studied in Edinburgh, or took 
postgraduate  courses  in Vienna;  for  texts  we reprinted 
British books or translated them from French and German. 
With anesthesia the situation was reversed. The academic 
gown fell from the venerable European shoulders, and the 
old schoolmaster became the eager pupil: America taught 
Europe the alphabet of anesthesia. 
This book, written on the eve of the centennial of merci 
ful surgery, relates the long struggle of science against suf 
fering, unsuccessful for ages and seemingly no nearer the 
goal-until the unexpected achievement. The revelation of 
anesthesia is a chapter in the life of science where it merges 
with the history of humanity: as such it should be part of 
the general education of the present generation. 
V.R.
EARLY  DEVELOPMENTS
Description:Introduction. LIE AUTHOR began an earlier book (The Story of Medi- cine, 1931) 
with the line: "The first cry of pain through the primitive jungle was the first call