Notes of an Anesthioboist summarizes a long report of events a hundred years ago:
Bier pricked Hildebrandt’s thigh with a needle. Then he passed a blunt, curved needle into the soft tissue of the thigh. No pain.
He pushed a long needle down to the thigh bone a few minutes later. No pain.
A few minutes after that, he applied the burning end of a cigar to Hildebrandt’s legs. (A cigar in the lab…how quaint…)
He pinched a leg (no pain). He pinched the upper chest (lots o’ pain).
He yanked body hairs down below, if you catch my drift (painless – eew). He yanked hairs up high (“very painful”). . .
Both of them subsequently developed debilitating post-dural-puncture headaches that lasted for days (much less common with the finer needles used today).
Hahaha–A wonderful combination of very rational and totally irrational!
I sat next to an anesthesiologist on a long flight, once. His advice was, if you ever need general anesthesia, ask for adenosine. Its effects completely dissipate in seven seconds, leaving no hint of dopiness behind. (But be sure the surgeon sprinkles in lots of lidocaine while stitching up!)
He related a story about his teacher, who had been an insufficiently-trained medic in the Japanese Army, ordered to administer adenosine for an operation, but used a little too much. The patient’s heart stopped, and he fainted. When he woke up, a few seconds later, the surgeon had noticed neither his fainting nor that the patient had died, and the patient’s heart was already beating again. He stood up and administered the adenosine for the rest of the operation without saying anything.
The story calls attention to another fact of anesthesia: the anesthetist is the only person in the operating room paying attention to whether you’re still alive.