Anaesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness

(Paperback)

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Description

You know how it is when you go under. The jab, the countdown, the
and then you wake.
This book is about what happens in between.

Until a hundred and seventy years ago many people chose death over the ordeal of surgery. Now hundreds of thousands undergo operations every day. Anaesthesia has made it possible.

But how much do we really know about what happens to us on the operating table Can we hear whats going on around us Is pain still pain if we are not awake to feel it, or dont remember it afterwards How does the unconscious mind deal with the bodys experience of being cut open and ransacked And how can we help ourselves through it

Haunting, lyrical, sometimes shattering, Anaesthesia leavens science with personal experience to bring an intensely human curiosity to the unknowable realm beyond consciousness.

Reviews

A work of splendid richness and depth, driven by a curiosity so intense that it hazards at times the extreme boundaries of the sayable. -- Helen Garner
Kate Cole-Adamshas been fascinated with our funny non-being during surgery for a long time, andAnaesthesiafeels like a book thats taken over a decade to write, which it is. It also feels like youre having a decades worth of conversations with a dogged, but generous and resourceful thinker, with someone (she is both a journalist and a novelist) who can crack open a complex idea, and then run with it. * Readings *
Comfortably numb. A close-up look at anaesthesia is equal parts social history, popular science and report on experience. * NZ Listener *
Cole-Adamss prose is sinuous, at times intoxicating, and witty. * Sydney Morning Herald *
Anaesthesiais not just an account of medical research but a poetic exploration of the mysteries of the human mind. * Australian *
A troubling, anxious subject that most of us would rather avoid or deflect with dark humour. Cole-Adams has illuminated it in a memorable way. The book is a gift not of oblivion but of awareness. * Inside Story *
For the interested reader, its an outline of the science, with an emphasis on the unknown. For the practitioner, its a patient experience, eloquently expressed. Theres much more the anaesthesia than meets the eye, and this book provides a glimpse into the depths. * Conversation *
Anaesthesia is mesmerisingThis rich and thorough study looks more deeply into questions about the nature of consciousness than many of us who undergo an anaesthetic are likely, or willing, to ponder. * Australian Book Review *
A fascinating mix of historical background, movingsometimes shockingsurgical stories, interviews with experts and casestudies. Surprisingly, it seems relatively little is really known about exactlyhow effective and affective anaesthetic is. Despite that, I found this book anoddlyreassuring study. * North and South *
A fascinating mix of historical background, movingsometimes shockingsurgical stories, interviews with experts and case studies. Surprisingly, it seems relatively little is really known about exactly how effective and affective anaesthetic is. Despite that, I found this book an oddly reassuring study. * North and South NZ *
Kate Cole-Adams has written a book that defies familiar categories. It is a personal memoir, a history, a scientific study, and a philosophical enquiry into the unconscious, and by drawing all these strands together the author has delivered a masterpiece. * Jamie Grant, head judge, Waverley Council Nib Literary Awards *
Extraordinarily well-researched and delicately structured, this is a book with few parallels. Exceptional writing illuminates a topic that affects most of us, but that few of us understand. * Judges Report, Victorian Premiers Literary Awards, 2018 *
This is a surprising delight of a book about the invention and use of anaesthetics, but it is also about the concept of consciousness. It is a book about the fear of death, the fear of a lack of control, the fear of an imminent operation, the way a life can be plagued by a general feeling of anxiety and how dreams play a part in this.
-- Krissy Kneen * Favourite Reads of 2017 *
An obsessive, mystical, terrifying, and even phantasmagorical exploration of anesthesias shadowy terra incognita. * New Yorker *
Kate Cole-Adamss Anaesthesia propelled me towards new ways of thinking about thinking itself: experience and consciousness and how we make in and make up this world. Australian, Books of the Year 2017
-- Ashley Hay * Australian, Books of the Year 2017 *
Remarkable in its attention to historical detail and quality of the primary sourcespractising anaesthetists should read what has become the single best account of our professions most philosophically fragile constructsconsciousness and self Cole-Adams has distilled and articulated the art of our profession. * Anaesthesia Intensive Care Journal *

Author Bio

Kate Cole-Adams is a Melbourne writer and journalist. Her non-fiction work Anaesthesia won the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, 2017 and the 2017 Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists Media Award. It was shortlisted for the Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Non-fiction, 2017. Her novel Walking to the Moon is also published by Text.