🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan27.174733.3100@cs.ucf.edu>, clarke@acme.ucf.edu (Thomas Clarke) writes:
|> In article <1k1mj7INN8cu@shelley.u.washington.edu>  
|> forbis@stein.u.washington.edu (Gary Forbis) writes:
|> > In article <1k0r1tINN5fn@cannelloni.cis.ohio-state.edu>  
|> chandra@cis.ohio-state.edu (B Chandrasekaran) writes:
|> > >Would you say that a patient under anesthesia is in pain, he just
|> > >doesn't feel it? I think that would be an odd use of the term.
|> >  
|> > I think that if the anesthetic prevents signals from entering the brain then
|> > no pain is felt but am less willing to claim a general anesthetic blocks pain
|> > when it might be the case that it merely blocks the ability to report pain.
|> 
|> The drug scopolamine is often given to women in labor since it
|> doesn't really make them unconscious so they can cooperate at
|> least a bit: "push" and all that.  The benefit is that the women
|> don't remember the experience/pain afterward.

I didn't think that this stuff (also called "twilight sleep" was used
much -- if at all -- any more).  I think it was popular 30 or more
years ago.  The question of what the benefit is and *whose* it is can
be an interesting one.  It does not appear to be of much benefit to
the woman, but more to the OB.  However, women I have talked to who
have delivered in this manner seem to feel it was beneficial -- *as
though* it were an anesthetic (most don't realize it wasn't).

|> I can't speak from experience (my wife had "natural" with a touch
|> of demerol), but I understand that women under scopolamine are 
|> quite verbal, cursing the men who did this to them etc. etc.

My wife had "natural" childbirth three times.  However, she was
quite "verbal" as well.

|> Corollary question.  If you don't remember, in what sense
|> are you conscious?

At this point in my life there is a *lot* I don't remember any
longer.  I do not infer from this that I was unconscious for most
of my life.

Here's another corollary question (one we used to kick around
in the graduate commons room a bit):  Suppose someone offered you
[insert absurd sum of money or some other desideratum] to be
tortured painfully and at length under the conditions that (a) no
permanent harm or disfigurement would result, and (b) that you
would be given a drug so that although the torture would be felt,
you would have no memory of it after it was over.  Would you take
the job?  If not, why not?  Your answer to this question should
at least be consistent with your answer to the original corollary
above.

-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm