EXCELLENT ARTICLE

The Mind Prepared: Hypnosis in Surgery

David Spiegel

Correspondence to: David Spiegel, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Rd, Ste 2325, Stanford, CA 94305-5718 (e-mail: dspiegel@stanford.edu).

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

In 1846, a Scottish surgeon named James Esdaile reported 80% surgical anesthesia using hypnosis as the sole anesthetic for amputations in India. His work caused sufficient stir that when ether anesthesia was demonstrated in what is now called the Ether Dome at the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16 of that same year, a surgeon strode to the front of the amphitheater and said, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug," to distinguish hissurgical team's demonstration from Esdaile's report. It has taken us a century and a half to rediscover the fact that the mind has something to do with pain and can be a powerful tool in controlling it: the strain in . . . [Full Text of this Article]