The war between humanity and its oldest, archest of enemies: pain.

April 26, 2024 12:50 PM

Mark Chrisler's podcast "The Constant" just concluded a 3 part series, "Comfortably Numb". Part 1 is about the horror and trauma due to the pain of surgery before anesthesia started being used in the 1840s, and ends with the question of why no one thought of using anesthetics before then despite their existence for decade(s) (nitrous oxide, chloroform) or centuries (ether) and their recreational use. Part 2 is about how anesthesia was introduced for surgery. Part 3 is about the fight between the men claiming to invent anesthesia led to their ruination.

(Sorry, no transcripts that I can find)

posted by ShooBoo (6 comments total)

Apple’s podcast app has an automatically generated transcript, ads and all.

I watched all that the surgeons did with a fascinated intensity.

CW: gore

I still recall, with unwelcome vividness, the spreading out of the instruments, the twisting of the tourniquet, the first incision, the fingering of the sawed bone, the sponge pressed on the flap, the tying of the blood vessels, the stitching of the skin, and the bloody dismembered limb lying on the floor. Those are not pleasant remembrances.

Yeah! No shit!

For a long time they haunted me, and even now they are easily resuscitated.

posted by infinitewindow at 6:09 PM on April 26 [1 favorite]

I guess this is an excuse to link to one of my favorite episodes of The Constant, about preventable shipwrecks... and other preventable problems.
posted by novalis_dt at 7:44 PM on April 26 [1 favorite]

There's something fascinating about the fact that after over 150 years of use, we still don't know how general anesthesia works. There is still so much for us to understand about our own brains.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:49 PM on April 26 [2 favorites]

Love love love this podcast. Mark Chrisler is a frickin’ delight.
posted by umbú at 9:00 PM on April 26

Previously, more anesthesia weirdness in my Just like humans, plants known for their movement (venus fly trap, mimosa, sundew) can succumb to the effects of general anesthesia.
posted by ShooBoo at 9:41 PM on April 26 [2 favorites]

I really enjoy this podcast. It brings me historical perspectives that I never had or, as in this case, didn't consider in just such a way. Mark Chrisler is a little too fond of his own jokes every so often, but what podcaster isn't?

The preventable shipwreck episode is indeed one of the best as a stand-alone.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:19 AM on April 28