It is recorded that “a Chinese physician named Hoa-Tho, who lived about A.D. 220 or 230, was accustomed to administer to his patients on whom he wished to perform painful operations, a preparation called ‘Ma-yo’ (Indian hemp, probably), the effect of which was that, after a few moments, they became insensible as if they were deprived of life.” Miss Isabella Bird, when visiting the Tung-wah Hospital, in Hong-Kong, states: “The native surgeons do not use chloroform in operations, but they possess drugs which throw their patients into a profound sleep, during which the most severe operations can be performed. One of them showed me a bottle containing a dark brown powder, which, he said, produced this result; but he would not divulge the name of one of its constituents, saying it was a secret taught him by his tutor.” From very early times the fumes of burning lycoperdon (_Lycoperdon gygantum_) have been used for stupefying bees before taking honey from the hive. Thus it will be seen from the many allusions we have quoted from writers in the early ages, it is evident that mandragora and Indian hemp were the two drugs which were more or less in general use as anæsthetics in antient times. ANÆSTHETICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES [Sidenote: An early Irish anæsthetic] In a Celtic manuscript of the twelfth century on materia medica, a preparation called “potu oblivionis” is mentioned, of which mandragora was probably an ingredient. A draught of this preparation was used by the early Irish to induce sleep. [Sidenote: The “Sleeping Sponge”] [Sidenote: Method of using the “Sleeping Sponge”]