Here’s an absolutely fascinating article, “The Day Pain Died,” about the first medical operation to use anesthetic.
Can you guess what year it happened?
The answer is 1846. But within that answer lies a bizarre history.
The article is by Mike Jay, and is drawn from his new book called The Atmosphere of Heaven.
The gist is that anesthesia itself was hardly new in the 19th century, but that a moral objection prevented its use. Why? Because pain was considered an integral and necessary part of life, and the removal of pain was the work of either a charlatan or a Satan:
As far back as 1525, the Renaissance physician Paracelsus had recorded that it made chickens “fall asleep, but wake up again after some time without any bad effect,” and that it “extinguishes pain” for the duration. …
Before 1846, the vast majority of religious and medical opinion held that pain was inseparable from sensation in general, and thus from life itself. Though the idea of pain as necessary may seem primitive and brutal to us today, it lingers in certain corners of healthcare, such as obstetrics and childbirth, where epidurals and caesarean sections still carry the taint of moral opprobrium. …
Most doctors still believed it was only pain that kept patients alive through the trauma of operations. System failure due to shock was a frequent cause of death during surgery, and the loss of sensation was believed to make it more likely. A screaming patient, however tormented, had a better prognosis than a limp and lifeless one. …
Despite its successes, resistance to the idea didn’t vanish overnight. Until the end of the century, some doctors would maintain that pain had a necessary role in the preservation of life, but from 1846 onward they were outnumbered by those who insisted that it was the job of a physician to inflict as little of it as possible. Some religious voices would hold out for a good deal longer: Pope Pius XII would confirm that “the Christian’s duty of renunciation and of interior purification is not an obstacle to the use of anesthetics” only in February 1957.
I learned of this article via Market Design, the blog of the always-interesting Al Roth. His headline was striking: “Anesthesia Was Once Repugnant.” There’s no way, I thought, that he could be right on this one (even though he has always been right in the past). But after reading Jay’s article, I was thoroughly convinced. Like most good arguments, it is not only convincing but humbling: how could we not have seen this earlier?
Even more interesting to me is that, the widespread use of anesthesia aside, there still seems to be a prominent streak in modern humanity that continues to see pain (or suffering, or angst, or call it whatever you want) as an elemental property that we must embrace, not just endure. For the record, I am not down with that. Just because life can be full of pain does not mean that it should be categorized as a moral good any more than, say, warfare should be considered a moral good simply because it has been an inevitable result of human interaction.
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could you liken pain during child birth to fraternity hazing… i.e experiencing pain in child birth may strengthen your bond to the new born?
This leads me to another interesting question – do women who have more painful labor processes feel closer bonds to their children? – due to some type of cognitive dissonance reaction.
…a job LOSS, that is. If you need antidepressants to make it through your job, you should first consider a career change.
Pain is not a moral good or moral evil. But our causing of it, allowing it, or reaction to it, can be a moral event. I recently experienced extreme pain which was remedied by a doctor’s prescription of pain medication. I could not help but think that he had done a wonderful thing for me–which means, it would seem, that the bringing about of the alleviation of pain is a moral good.
As a Christian, I am still surprised by the utterly “unChristian” thinking that has permeated our history. I mean, didn’t Jesus Himself say that He had come to “bind up the brokenhearted, to heal the sick,” and so forth? That would seem to give us to CLEAR indication that while God may USE pain to accomplish some good, His ultimate purpose is to bring about relief, to alleviate these pains of a fallen world.
And so I remain grateful for the pain that has, at times, made me a better, more persevering man…and for the alleviation of pain that has made me more grateful and reflective of how good life can be.
Perhaps the surgical techniques of the present day are a lot more pain-inducing than the more simple (and less invasive) procedures of 150 years ago?
So, with more pain comes more of a need for something to remove that pain.
It is an interesting question, though…like living in a “too clean” environment causing one’s immune system to be weak and susceptible, could experiencing no pain have a down-side?
I’ve partaken of full anesthesia a few times in my life, twice for surgeries right in the front of my neck. I’ll keep the choice of being “knocked out” and pain free (both physical and emotional) during such surgeries!
But the underlying question remains…Are there benefits to experiencing real pain, and are there drawbacks to avoiding it?
Hard to imagine that doctors who took the oath to “Do no harm” allowed their patients to be in excruciating pain, when they knew they could limit or eliminate the pain of surgery.
I agree with Boris #6, about C Sections. Recovery times for women who had C-Sections is on average considerably longer than than women who gave birth vaginally. Many women will opt for a greater intensity of pain vs an extended recovery period.
Check out Gretchen Rubin‘s opinion on that – basically it’s that you never really appreciate the absense of something (like not being depressed) until you know what it’s like to have it.
there was also an historical argument which speculated that anaesthesia didn’t kill pain, it just killed the ability to respond to it- this led to the nightmare scenario of being fully awake during all the surgery/pain, but being paralyzed to do anything about it- this has actually been verified in some cases empirically, via anaesthesia error and poisonings (see serpent and rainbow for movie portrayal)