530 PHOCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



None of the passages which I have quoted implies in any way that 

 the writer was familiar with the use of anaesthetics. I have found two 

 passages upon which some argument for a knowledge of their use on the 

 part of the writer might be founded : 



riut., Moral., 102 D: "May we not be ill at all," says the Academician 

 Crautor, " but if so, let us have our senses, even if one of our members be 

 cut or taken away. For that state of insensibility does not come to one 

 without great cost, since in that case one is likely to become brutish not 

 only in body, but also in mind." 



At first sight it seems that "that state of insensibility" may be the 

 anaesthesia which we are looking for ; but when the passage is examined 

 in relation to the context, the word seems rather to refer to apathy or 

 indifference to pain (aTrdOeLav, further up in the passage of which I have 

 quoted the latter part) than to anaesthesia produced by drugs. 

 The other passage is from Lucian : 



Apol., 2 : Now is the time for me to be quiet and to endure cutting and 

 cauterizing, if need be, for my welfare; and for you to sprinkle on the drugs, 

 holding in readiness the knife and the flaming cautery. 



Here it is possible tliat we have a reference to local anaesthesia. If the 

 drugs were to be applied after the cutting and burning, it would be clear 

 that we had to do with something applied to the lacerated parts to aid 

 the healing process, a custom which appears to have been very old.* 

 But it is to be noted that Lucian instructs his friend Jirst to sprinkle on 

 the drugs, and then to hold the knife and cautery in readiness. 



After carefully weighing all the evidence, I think that we may safely 

 conclude (1) that the use of niandragora as an anaesthetic before surgical 

 operations was known to, and to some extent employed by physicians at 

 least as early as the first century of the Christian era; (2) that niandra- 

 gora was the principal, and almost the only anaesthetic of antiquity ; (3) 

 that the use of anaesthetics never became very general either in ancient 

 or mediaeval times, this being doubtless due to the danger attendant 

 upon their use. It was this danger which led the medical writers to urge 

 caution in the use of all (inodijnes.^ 



Worcester, Massachusetts. 



* Compare Horn., II., 11 8;]0, 844 ff. ; and Plut., Moral., 74 D, quoted above. 

 t See Celsus, 5. 25. 1 ; Galen, 10. 816. 



