DEFINITION

• The word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1846.

• Anesthesia, or anaesthesia ("without sensation"), has traditionally meant the condition of

having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away. It is
a pharmacologically induced reversible state of amnesia , analgesia, loss of responsiveness, loss
of skeletal muscle and/or decreased stress response.

• This allows patients to undergo surgery and other procedures without the distress and pain they
would otherwise experience.

• Another definition is a "reversible lack of awareness," whether this is 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 or
another nerve block would cause.