Carter A J
North Staffordshire Hospital, Stoke on Trent.
BMJ. 1996;313(7072):1630-2. doi: 10.1136/bmj.313.7072.1630.
Although this year marks the 150th anniversary of the discovery of modern surgical anaesthesia, surgery itself has a much longer history. It is well known that extracts from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, were used to dull the pain of surgery during ancient times but less well known that extracts from plants with sedative powers often accompanied them, producing primitive anaesthesia. Most of these sedative plants were members of a large botanical family, the Solanaceae. This paper describes some of them and discusses the ways in which they were administered. It also explains why, during the middle ages, these primitive techniques went out of use but how none the less they provided Shakespeare with the inspiration for some of his greatest plays. When the active principal of the Solanaceae was identified as scopolamine, it came to play a part in 20th century anaesthesia. The combination of omnopon and scopolamine lives on as a premedication, and the presence of poppy heads and mandrake roots on the arms of today's Association of Anaesthetists serves to remind us of the speciality's links with its past.
尽管今年是现代外科麻醉发现150周年，但手术本身的历史要长得多。众所周知，古代曾使用罂粟（Papaver somniferum）的提取物来减轻手术疼痛，但鲜为人知的是，具有镇静作用的植物提取物常常与罂粟提取物一同使用，从而产生了原始的麻醉效果。这些具有镇静作用的植物大多属于一个庞大的植物科——茄科。本文介绍了其中一些植物，并讨论了它们的给药方式。文章还解释了为什么在中世纪这些原始技术不再使用，以及它们如何仍然为莎士比亚创作一些最伟大的戏剧提供了灵感。当茄科植物的活性成分被确定为东莨菪碱时，它在20世纪的麻醉中发挥了作用。阿片全碱和东莨菪碱的组合作为一种术前用药沿用至今，而如今麻醉师协会会徽上出现的罂粟果和曼德拉草根图案则提醒我们这一专业与过去的联系。
