title: Surgery without pain--Part 1: Background.
abstract: This paper was commissioned to cover the beginnings of anaesthesia: the transition from surgical operations with pain to those without. It reviews some previous pre-anaesthetic histories (Part I): it focuses upon attitudes to pain; and it seeks evidence from the one hundred years before the discovery of anaesthesia. Finally (Part II) it outlines the introduction of nitrous oxide and of ether anaesthesia.
mesh_terms: D000758:Anesthesia / Q000266:history* / Q000379:methods; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D009892:Opium / Q000266:history; D010146:Pain / Q000517:prevention & control
chemical_list: D009892:Opium