What a Blessing She Had Chloroform: The Medical and Social Response to the Pain of Childbirth from 1800 to the Present

This book is the result of an attempt to understand and explain the reaction of women to the pain of childbirth. The author achieves his goal wonderfully! The early history or obstetric anesthesia is explained in marvelous detail, with Simpson, Snow, Meigs, Channing, Queen Victoria, etc. It was the Queen who said "What a blessing she had chloroform," referring to her daughter Victoria's first obstetric experience. This younger Victoria later (1859) became the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Maternal and neonatal mortality, the transformation of medical practice by science, the risks of anesthesia, and twilight sleep are all carefully explained. As we all grew up in a secular society, it astonishes us that obstetric pain might be considered the result of divine wrath, or the sin of our first parents. This concept is developed from one of the author's fine publications (The seculariza-tion of pain. Anesthesiology 62: 493-501, 1985). The author concludes his discussion with recent trends in obstetric care, such as natural childbirth and drugs and medicine, and the social value of pain and suffering. He includes reader responses of women to obstetric pain, is determined to demonstrate all facets of controversies, and is open minded throughout. The very last sentence sums up the central theme of this book: ".. . patients find ways to preserve the meaning in childbirth even in the absence of pain and suffering." This book firmly holds the interest of the reader despite its intricate detail, and I highly recommend it to those interested in the saga of obstetric pain relief. High Life is a new publication chron-icling the remarkable efforts to understand the effects of the high-altitude environment on human physiology. It is the latest book from one of the foremost investigators in the field of high-altitude medicine