'Strange practices': mesmerism and the tumultuous birth of anaesthesia

A practitioner of Mesmerism. Wellcome Collection, Public Domain Mark.

By Beth Roberts

A heated rivalry emerged in the early 1800s, between a doctor promoting an unusual early form of hypnotism to remove surgical pain and the proponents of the first anaesthetics.

Surgery in the early 19th Century was a brutal business; with no pain relief and no real concept of hygiene, death rates were high.