Both heart and mind lay mercifully numb under the anaesthetic of the shock.

She is laid upon the operating table with the blessed aid of anaesthetics at hand; there is still time to save the baby.

Mrs. Piper is not anaesthetic during the so-called trance, and if you ask my private opinion, it is that the whole thing is an imposture, and a poor one.' Mr. Barkworth said that, as far as his experience went, 'Mrs. Piper's powers are of the ordinary thought-reading [i.e. muscle-reading] kind, dependent on her hold of the visitor's hand.'

"Accidental death" was the verdict of the coroner and the newspapers, and, in fact, of the world in generala conclusion much assisted by the evidence of Christine, who testified that her mistress was in the habit of using narcotics and anaesthetics in large quantities to relieve the pain of the neuralgic headaches from which she was a constant sufferer.

As a physician his method was to ease painhe would rather take the risk of losing a patient from the use of an anaesthetic than from the shock of an operation.

Work was as an anaesthetic to Sylvia in those days.