title: George Bernard Shaw on Anesthesia.
abstract: Recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an influential critic of the health care establishment in the United Kingdom. Although skeptical of many medical and surgical procedures of the early 20th century, he respected the value of anesthesia, and he advocated its administration by Frederick W. Axham, a medical doctor whose registration was suspended as punishment for providing anesthesia for a bonesetting procedure. In 1924, when a friend needed surgery, Shaw offered to pay the extra fee for the optional anesthesia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Electronic address: talston@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Theodore A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Alston
authors.affiliation: Departments of Anesthesiology, Medicine, and Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA. Electronic address: daniel.carr@tufts.edu.
authors.forename: Daniel B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D000758:Anesthesia / Q000266:history*; D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009613:Nobel Prize; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Bonesetting; Frederick W. Axham; Herbert A. Barker; Nobel Prize; Robert Koch; The Doctor's Dilemma; Vivisection