So God empal’d our Grandsire’s (Adam) lively look,
Through all his bones a deadly chilness strook,
Siel’d-up his sparkling eyes with Iron bands,
Led down his feet (almost) to Lethe’s sands;
In briefe, so numm’d his Soule’s and Bodie’s sense,
That (without pain) opening his side, from thence
He took a rib, which rarely He refin’d,
And thereof made the Mother of Mankind.
The history of anæsthetics is a remarkable illustration of the acknowledged fact that science has sometimes, for a long season, altogether lost sight of great practical thoughts, from being unprovided with proper means and instruments for carrying out those thoughts into practical execution; and hence it ever and anon occurs that a supposed modern discovery is only the rediscovery of a principle already sufficiently known to other ages, or to remote nations.