anesthetic for performing surgical operations was used....

anesthetic for performing surgical operations was used around 1846 (ether, by Dr. Robert Liston)

But how did they do it before that time, when they had to operate on someone?

Simple. The patient was kneeled with his head stuck inside a pot and placed on an anvil.

At that point an employee hit the pot with a mallet, an action that made the unfortunate person lose consciousness for the duration of the operation.

Of course it wasn't infallible, because either he didn't faint right away or they woke up during the operation.

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A great story about a little bit of 'humanity' during a terrible war.

A great story about a little bit of 'humanity' during a terrible war. In April 1945, 2nd Lt. Peter During was a South African fighter pilot (N.7 Squadron) running missions over Italy when his Spitfire was shot down by German AA fire. He managed to crash land his plane behind enemy lines where he was immediately captured. Whilst been escorted to a German Lufwaffe Prisoner of War (POW) camp (he was a pilot and thus his interrogation and imprisonment was the responsibility of the German airforce), he opened a conversation with his captors. He was quickly able to establish that they could already see the writing on the wall, that the war was at an end and Germany would lose it. ...

French woman accused of sleeping with Germans during the occupation has her head shaved by vindictive neighbors in village near Marseilles.

French woman accused of sleeping with Germans during the occupation has her head shaved by vindictive neighbors in village near Marseilles. Antony Beevor wrote: "... In Paris, there were cases of prostitutes kicked to death for having accepted German soldiers as clients. (...) A large number of the victims were prostitutes who had simply plied their trade with Germans as well as Frenchmen, although in some areas it was accepted that their conduct was professional rather than political, others were silly teenagers who had associated with German soldiers out of bravado or boredom. In a number of cases, female schoolteachers who, living alone, had German soldiers billeted on them, were falsely denounced for having been a "mattress for the boches. (...) Women accused of having had an abortion were also assumed to have consorted with Germans. Many victims were young mothers, whose husbands were in German prisoner-of-war camps. During the war, they often had no means of supp...

US executes first woman Lisa Montgomery on federal death row in nearly 70 years.

US executes first woman Lisa Montgomery on federal death row in nearly 70 years. Montgomery was the first female prisoner to be executed in by the US government since 1953. Montgomery, 52, was put to death by lethal injection of pentobarbital. The US government executed convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, on Wednesday, after the Supreme Court cleared the last hurdle by overturning a stay. Challenges were fought across multiple federal courts on whether to allow the execution of Montgomery, 52, who was put to death by lethal injection of pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate in the Justice Department`s execution chamber at its prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The U.S. Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, cleared the way for her execution after overturning a stay by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Kelley Henry, Montgomery`s lawyer, called the execution "vicious, unlawful, and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power." ...

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