Expert: Dr Ian Jackson - please note UK based - 6/16/2005

Question
Hi,

I don't know if my question is too out of range from your expertise, but any info you can give would help... I want to know if there are any kind of natural anesthetics, something other than actual medicine.  For example, what did people do in the old days during operations, before the discovery of anesthesia?  Or, what could people do in modern times if an emergency operation had to be performed somewhere where there is no access to anesthesia?  Are there any tactics a patient might use to block out the pain?  I hope my questions make sense...I'm asking because I'm writing a book (fiction), and it would help to know this.  Thanks!


Answer
Hi there Cassie

I'm sure you could find some interesting websites with info on such things

http://www.general-anaesthesia.com/ gives a bit of history or even http://www.wordfocus.com/anesthes-wrd-hist.html may be helpful to a budding author.

In modern times most people have some sort of access - though many ops in the developing world are done under local anaesthesia.

However even now people have found themselves in situations where they have had no option but to do something drastic with no anaesthetic e.g. the chap in the states who trapped his hand and had to cut it off.

If you read the above websites you will see that anaesthesia actually uses many agents that are 'natural' or started from these beginnings. Indeed that is true of medicine as a whole. Just today I was at a meeting learning about new agents that are being developed from the toxin produced by a South American frog and a sea snail fopund off Australia.

Hope this helps.
Dr Ian Jackson