Anesthesia, Surgery, and Modern Medicine

Abstract

This chapter deals with a number of relatively recent technologies affecting human health. The conquest of pain through analgesics and anesthetics is particularly important because it has made other treatments (including surgery and dentistry) much more acceptable. It has also changed the concept of punishment for crime—flogging is no longer acceptable. The use of torture for gaining intelligence has also become unacceptable. Illness and pain are no longer regarded automatically as “the will of God,” but rather as scientific challenges. Avoidance of excruciating pain (even during childbirth) and keeping many of one’s teeth for most of a lifetime are now plausible objectives for most people. Antiseptics have greatly reduced the transmission of disease and (with anesthetics) have made vaccination, surgery, and dentistry safe and effective. The latter part of the chapter deals with new forms of old drugs and new drugs that did not previously exist.