The Delicate Thread

This evening I went to a boards review lecture on anesthesia. This of course sparked so many ideas in my head since drugs are so INCREDIBLY FASCINATING... Just on a basic level, if you think about how amazing it is that drugs can be used to produce or inhibit certain effects...how these compounds are designed to mimic compounds naturally found in the body...or how these drugs can physically bind to specific receptors in our (and animals') bodies to block or potentiate the effects of the nervous system---that's crazy, right??? Way back when, Descartes,a 17th century philosopher, described the pathways of pain (which by the way are still not 100% understood) as a "delicate thread" in which this "thread" ran from the bottom of your foot up to your brain. If noxious stimuli like say, fire, were placed under your foot, mini fire particles would travel up the delicate thread, then open a pore to connect to your brain. Then you would feel pain. Anyway, during this evening's lecture, it was mentioned that long ago animals were euthanized with drugs that simply paralyzed their muscles (neuromuscular blockers), including the diaphragm, so they would stop breathing. Needless to say, with no kind of pain relief, this was not only unethical, but probably an excruciating death. Then it was brought up that somewhere the lecturer had read a human patient's account of the horrors of having surgery with NO anesthesia, just neuromuscular blockers....I really wanted to find that account, so I searched the ends of the internet and couldn't find it!! I may have to track down that lecturer and ask where he found it. In the meantime, I found some interesting information on anesthesia awareness on good old wikipedia.