One Grand Chain

Abstract

One Grand Chain: The History of Anaesthesia in Australia, 1846-1962. Volume I, 1846-1934, Gwen Wilson. Melbourne: The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (North American distributor: Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Park Ridge, IL), 1995, ISBN 0646-264-87-7, 657 pp, $80.00. This is a wonderful book! It is a serious, scholarly work of history by a professional historian who is also a distinguished Australian physician anesthetist. Gwen Wilson is a great story teller. Her writing reminds us of Francis Parkman's. Dr. Wilson began her medical studies in 1934 at the University of Sydney, so she has lived and practiced anesthesia throughout its modern era. Her writing is clear and lively. She helps you share her own excitement and fascination as the story unfolds. Like most serious histories, it tells you rather more than you thought you might want to know about the history of anesthesia in Australia. Yet, it is a great read! Why should two American anesthetists (one just starting his career, the other with 36 years of practice) find this book such fun? As human beings, we strive to understand and interact with our world--a world that constantly changes and occasionally seems to make little sense. One way of understanding the present is to learn about the past, to try to fathom how we got where we are. Good, serious histories of anesthesia are rare. There are lots of scholarly articles and some good chapters or sections in textbooks or books on the history of medicine. Yet there is little else on this topic in English, except rather short histories aimed at lay audiences. Most of us are reasonably familiar with the anesthetic events of the 1840s, but we are almost ignorant about what happened between then and the time we started medical school. Most of our teachers are no stronger than we when it comes to the history of our specialty; they just started medical school before us. Most readers of this journal are only vaguely familiar with Australia, which is far away even in this age of jet aircraft. Why should two Americans in Boston who have never been lucky enough to visit Australia find this book so fascinating? Unlike Europeans, during the last centruy Australians and Americans faced the problem of settlling almost empty continents. Australia was closely tied to its mother country, Great Britain, but in other ways we were rather similar. The frontier closed in American at least 50 years before it did down under, but we were both of largely European stock with like traditions, religion, science, and culture. We were influenced by many of the same events and pressures. Yet, our histories are different enough to be interesting and to require constant contrasts and comparisons. Appreciating how anesthesia developed in Australlia makes it easier to understand its development and even its present situation in our own country. Dr. Wilson helps us do this by relating her story of Australian anesthesia not only to events of the day in Australia, but also to social, political, scientific, and medical developments in Europe and North America. Some readers will sit down and read this big book from start to finish. Most, we believe, will keep it by their easy chair or bedside to pick it up for a few minutes, or even hours, of fun. It reads easily this way. The chapters cover broad topics: "1847 in Australia," "The First Anaesthetics in Australia and New Zealand," "Chloroform: Boon or Bane?" "1848-1887," "1888-1910: Climate for Change," "Current of Change 1911-1934." These chapters are broken up into sections, and sections are broken into topics of two to five pages. In great measure, topics and sections can stand alone, that is, they can be read individually, out of order, and still be appreciated. This makes the book fun for browsing. Try doing that with most novels. This book is fun to read. It tells in graphic, lively prose a great story, a story that continues, both here and in Australia, a wider story in which you and we, as physicians practicing anesthesia, continue to play a role. Thomas Suarez, MD Bucknam McPeek, MD Department of Anesthesia Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard University Medical School Boston, MA 02114