The Birth of Man.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 879, 4 January 1889, Page 4

The Birth of Man.

Tne ethical question how far it is pusil* lanimous and even religious to profit by the annihilation of pain which anassthesia affords under surgical operation and in accouche, ments has recently undergone discussion anew in some of the French papers. The discussion is antiquated and ouc of date in this country, and many of the stories told would hardly bear repetition in this Berious country. Sir James Simpson long ago dis. posed of the argument now revivified, which charges the woman who accepts anaesthesia in childbirth with evading the Biblical in. junction of pain. An indignant Frenchwoman, however, caps the argument with some flippancy, but not without a reckless wit. ‘You quote,’she says, ‘ some verse.lets of the Bible against U 3 ; bub let me remind you that the only one of your sex who took his part in the act of giving birth profited by anaesthesia; for when Adam gave up a rib towards the creation of Eve, he was first thrown into the deep sleep of insensibility,' —British Medical Journal.