George Bernard Shaw on Anesthesia

Recipient of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an influential critic of the health care establishment in the United Kingdom. Although skeptical of many medical and surgical procedures of the early 20th century, he respected the value of anesthesia, and he advocated its administration by Frederick W. Axham, a medical doctor whose registration was suspended as punishment for providing anesthesia for a bonesetting procedure. In 1924, when a friend needed surgery, Shaw offered to pay the extra fee for the optional anesthesia.