Dark Side of the Horse by Samson for February 01, 2024

And, of course, the earplug method, so the doctor won’t be distracted by your screaming.

Sounds like something to shout about.

The Dr said “The stuff is going in now, your going to sleep” I said “Aren’t I supposed to count backwards from 100 or something” Everyone started laughing. That’s the last thing I remember

Eh we ancient Indians had better methods like what Sushruta is does for surgeries back in around 1000-800 BCE. Hic!

Fun (or not so fun) fact, no one knows how anesthesia works. Its theoretically possible that it doesn’t make you sleep, but paralyzes you, and then erases your memory so you don’t remember the horrible torturous pain you went through. Also, it also works on moving plants such as Venus fly traps.

My last knee surgery: the anesthesiologist just waved bye bye and then I woke up in recovery. Best surgical experience yet ; and I have had several.

1580: They whack you on the head with the book. Sleepytime!

I remember being knocked out by ether when I was a kid. I still recall what was going on in my mind as I was being put under. It was very unpleasant….as was the recovery when you end up losing your cookies.

Samuel Pepys had an operation to remove a bladder stone in 1658, when he was 25 years old. No anesthetic, he was just bound and held down, probably by several people. No knowledge of the causes of infection, either, so no sterilization of the surgical instruments.

But he got lucky, survived, and lived until 1703.

https://Wchh.Onlinelibrary.wiley.Com/doi/full/10.1002/tre.849

Or the method popularized by Doctors Howard, Fine and Howard, the Mallet.

They would put a wooden bowl on your head and hit it with a mallet. Concussions were the likeliest outcome.

Oops, sorry! …that was the Laughing Gas!

Horace becomes sleepy when the science of sleeping and counting sheep becomes involved! Lol

for Horace, reading the highlights is such a gas…!

I did not expect that last panel, and it us quite a welcome surprise!

Hypnotically hilarious!

Yes, doing that’s the anesthesia by the book…!

I wonder that “E.Z Duzit.” Easy does it?

Great moments in medical history: In 1809 Kentucky Dr. Ephraim McDowell became the first doctor to remove an ovarian tumor without killing the patient. Since this was well before the invention of ether, doctors had no anesthesia besides alcohol, which McDowell’s patient, Jane Todd Crawford (age 44) refused because she was a strict Presbyterian. Instead, she sang hymns to distract herself from the pain while he cut her open and removed the 22-lb. tumor. She not only lived another 32 years, she outlived McDowell himself. He died of a ruptured appendix in 1830. Although he and Mrs. Crawford had proved it was possible to survive abdominal surgery, no other local doctor was brave enough to operate on him.

Best cellar.