Main description:

Before anaesthesia was discovered, what could surgeons offer their patients? Amputation? Setting a broken bone? Operations were rarely carried out - and all were accompanied by unimaginable pain and often resulted in death. Anaesthesia changed surgery forever. Consider what marvels can now be performed on any organ in the body, in the absence of pain and with every expectation of survival. Its discovery altered society, hugely for the better, and yet so little is known or understood about it by most of us. Just a Little Scratch describes some of the who, why, what and how in the development of modern anaesthesia and will answer many of the questions that a patient might wish to ask. How does it work? Will I wake up in the middle of the operation? What does the anaesthetist do during the operation? Is the anaesthetist a doctor? What's the best anaesthetic? With forty years' experience of fielding and answering these questions without scaring his patients, Dr David Raitt has written a history of anaesthesia, starting at the beginning and taking us through the evolution of the specialty from black art to science. Learn about its early history, how anaesthetics have changed over the years, and what they are like today. Discover more about what anaesthetists actually do and the equipment and drugs which they use to put you to sleep.