I read that in North Korea, some hospitals are so destitute that they are lacking in anesthetics at times and that surgery was sometimes done without anesthesia, having the patients tied down to boards.
If we use an appendectomy as an example - appendicitis requiring a major operation in order to prevent sepsis - if done without anesthesia, what major complications might arise? (Aside from extreme agony, of course.)
Seems that there are 3 potential issues that would complicate the operation:
The patient’s muscles would be extremely tense. Due to terror and agony, the body would be all rigid and flexed, and it would be difficult for the scalpel to slice through the abdominal muscles.
The patient’s blood pressure would be through the roof. This would make bleeding more severe during the operation.
The pain inflicted might alter the patient’s mental state and make him or her mentally altered after the operation - essentially, what happens to some torture victims.
Any others?
I’m reading a book called On Combat which mentioned this a few pages ago. It said that death from “surgical shock” was quite common prior to anesthesia.
FWIW I’ve had a root canal and an endoscopy without anesthesia.
These are not surgical procedures per se but they are situations where people usually have something to get them to lie still and be attended to.
(The dentist who did the root canal said, “I can’t give you anything because I don’t know that you won’t have a reaction to it” … and when I had the endoscopy the anesthesia hadn’t taken effect and doctor wouldn’t wait. Having red hair might have something to do with it. The Pain of Being a Redhead - The New York Times)
In both cases there was much yelling — mostly by the dentist and doctor, saying things like “Stop screaming” and “Don’t move.” I finally got through both of them by fixing my gaze on something (the ceiling, the monitor where my gut was being displayed) and concentrating with every ounce of my being on Not Being There.
Obviously I lived through all of this but not without some after effect. (AND the root canal didn’t take after all and I needed surgery later, where I DID have plenty anesthesia, thanks be.) But I couldn’t sit in a dentist chair for years afterwards, couldn’t even go by a dental office without anxiety. Finally did get over it but it took a tremendously kind and caring dentist (Dr. Peter Silver in New York City, go see him if you can, he’s GREAT!) and a bunch of Valium and Xanax.
They’re going to have to catch me for another endoscopy.
These days I tell people up front that I have had these problems and all the procedures I’ve had since have been properly and even beautifully medicated. I’m very grateful.
Huh - so when it is said in war, espionage or other contexts that someone was “tortured to death,” maybe death from pain really *is *possible, due to the shock it causes.
From reading old books about pre-anesthesia surgery, surgeons were celebrated for how fast they could complete an operation (for obvious reasons).
But I would expect that would lead to less careful work, and much less sanitary practices (though the whole germ theory of infection was unknown for much of that time).