Synopses & Reviews
Pain and suffering, once associated with punishment for sin, became regarded as a purposeless evil that was hostile to human welfare. The works of Thomas Beddoes, Coleridge, and Shelley embody the change in attitude toward suffering and lay the groundwork for the general use of anesthesia in modern medicine. Papper contends that there was no real societal readiness to treat or prevent pain until the idea of the worth of the common man or woman was established by the upheaval of the French Revolution. The humanitarian concepts that we take for granted were relatively recent developments in Western society and were associated with the recognition of the importance of the individual.
Review
...should have wide appeal to those who are interested in romantic literature, the history of medicine, 19th-century and early 20th-century poets, and the discovery of anesthesia. While the question, "What took so long?" may not be unique, it has not to my knowledge been critically examined. That it has now been studied by a scholar of English literature who also happens to be a world-renowned anesthesiologist is, indeed, unique, as well as an important contribution to our understanding of how Western civilization has come to view pain and the true significance of modern anesthesiology.JAMA
Synopsis
Romantic notions of human rights and freedoms are shown to be related to the attitude changes toward pain and suffering that prepared the ground for the discovery and general use of anesthesiology in medicine.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [147]-155) and index.
About the Author
E. M. PAPPER is Professor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology at the University of Miami School of Medicine where he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine until 1981.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Sherwin B. Nuland
An Anesthesiologist's Attempts to Understand Pain and Suffering as a Medical-Literary Conglomerate
The Discovery of Anesthesia--An Outgrowth of an Understanding about the Prevention of Pain and Suffering
Thomas Beddoes, Sr., Physician and Philosopher
The Importance of Bristol as a Site for the Pneumatic Institute: Beddoes and Bristol
The Recruitment of Scientists, Writers, and Experimenters for the Pneumatic Institute
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Pain and Suffering as Experience
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Commentary and Summary
Epilogue
Supplementary Reading