Anesthesia

Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἴσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away. It is a pharmacologically induced and reversible state of amnesia, analgesia, loss of responsiveness, loss of skeletal muscle reflexes or decreased stress response, or all simultaneously. These effects can be obtained from a single drug which alone provides the correct combination of effects, or occasionally a combination of drugs (such as hypnotics, sedatives, paralytics and analgesics) to achieve very specific combinations of results. This allows patients to undergo surgery and other procedures without the distress and pain they would otherwise experience. An alternative definition is a "reversible lack of awareness," including a total lack of awareness (e.g. a general anesthetic) or a lack of awareness of a part of the body such as a spinal anesthetic. The pre-existing word anesthesia was suggested by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1846 as a word to use to describe this state.