The Anesthetist Looks at Pre- and Post-Operative Care

An article in a recent issue of the British magazine Punch, entitled "Sleeping Partner," deals with surgeons and anesthetists. It opens with this paragraph: "Surgeons are traditionally accused by the medical profession of introducing two necessary evils—wound infection and anaesthetists. In the past hundred years both of these have fortunately become less dangerous to human life." There are many amusing statements in the article, and the author, in a jovial fashion, tells of the changing relationships between surgeons and anesthetists. He states that formerly "the surgeon took the limelight and ninety per cent of the fee; the anaesthetist at his best was only a Jeeves, ready to smooth the surgical progress of his master, to encourage him in clinical distress, and to temper discreetly his operative enthusiasms," and how after a day's work the anesthetist "left the hospital by bicycle in the dust of the surgical limousine." But, "as