I'm pleased to say my husband took a few hours off his maths revision (he's an Open University student too) to write this review:
An interwoven story of chemistry, medicine,
philosophy and religion, Blessed Days of Anaesthesia charts the remarkable
changing attitudes towards pain during the nineteenth century. As pioneers of
ether and chloroform start to challenge the Victorian idea that pain is a
God-given stimulant, battles rage about the ethics and morality of such meddling
with human consciousness. The story ebbs and flows as anaesthesia has both
successes and dramatic failures. While practitioners experiment recklessly on
themselves, key players take centre stage: Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens
and Charles Darwin all become involved, and Queen Victoria herself gives birth
to Prince Leopold under the influence of chloroform. Meanwhile, dark stories are
emerging from London’s back-streets of nefarious activities committed with the
aid of chemical-soaked handkerchiefs, and The Crimean War brings along a whole
new wave of human suffering. Blessed Days
of Anaesthesia is nicely written and has the intriguing subplots and
interesting characters that you would hope to find in an exciting novel.
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