http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/cms%20122911.mp3
Whether it's 30 minutes of 24 hours, time under anesthesia is time you'll never get back. Anesthesia finds the light switch of the brain and flicks it off. We're not conscious, we don't feel pain, we don't remember and we don't move. Even now, 165 years into the age of anesthesia, we know what works but we don't know exactly how. Consciousness is a mystery, so there's no exact road map for his induced and carefully controlled state of unconsciousness is.
Today, we'll look at the modern practice of anesthesia and then move backwards into its history. You'll here about an ambitious anesthesia museum in Illinois, and we'll talk about the tragic life of one of the pioneer of the practice -- Horace Wells, a 19th century Hartford dentist whose statue stands in Bushnell Park.
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