This Yankee Dodge Beats Mesmerism Hollow
-the story of anaesthetics
Every day several thousand patients take it for granted they will sleep during surgery and be unaware of pain. Yet only 130 years ago there was no anaesthesia. Operations were put off until the choice lay between surgery and death.
Today the anaesthetist is no longer the rag and bottle man. He is a skilled technician with a wide choice of gases and drugs. He is also the man who looks after the patient in the operating theatre and protects him during surgery. The programme follows an anaesthetist as he cares for a patient in an operation lasting seven hours.
Narrator William Franklyn
Editor BRUCE NORMAN
Producer CHRISTOPHER LA FONTAINE