About 3000 years BC the Assyrians knew an effective method (so to speak) to cause anesthesia: compressing the carotid at the neck. Dioscorides, a Greek physician, also called hamlets, in the year 50 CE anesthesia used the term in its modern meaning in describing the effects of the mandrake, which was administered (a part of the root of the plant) to patients who were to undergo surgery.
It was not until many centuries later, in mid-nineteenth and drawing quite a few avatars, when steps were critical to saving surgery, then one of its major areas: pain. (more…)