The practice of taking opium and other vegetable narcotics, to relieve pain or procure sleep, was common in the most remote periods to which history extends; but the earliest notices which remain of any attempts to prevent the pain of surgical operations were written at the period of the Roman Empire. They were alluded to by Dr. Simpson at the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh in November, 1847.[4] Dioscorides,[5] speaking of mandragora, says, “Some persons boil the root in wine down to a third part, and preserve the decoction, of which they administer a cyathus (rather more than an ounce and a half) in want of sleep and severe pains of any part, and also before operations with the knife or the actual cautery, that they may not be felt.” (Ante sectiones ustionesve, ut ne sentiantur.) Further on he says: “A wine is prepared from the bark of the root without boiling, and three pounds of it are put into a _cadus_ (about eighteen gallons) of sweet wine, and three cyathi of this are given to those who require to be cut or cauterized: when being thrown into a deep sleep they do not feel any pain.” The same author also adds,[6] in speaking of a kind of mandragora called morion, “They relate that a drachm of it being taken as a draught, or eaten in a cake or other food, causes infatuation, and takes away the use of the reason. The person sleeps without sense, in the attitude in which he ate it, for three or four hours afterwards. Medical men also use it when they have to resort to cutting or burning.” In treating of mandragora, Pliny[7] remarks that the juice of the leaves is more powerful than the preparations made from the root. He says, “Some persons even die from a considerable draught. It has the power of causing sleep in those who take it. The dose is half a cyathus (six drachms). It is taken against serpents, and before cuttings and puncturings, lest they be felt. For these purposes it is sufficient for some persons to have sought sleep from the smell (of the medicine).” Apuleius,[8] under the head mandragora, says, “If any one eat it he will immediately die, unless he be treated with butter and honey, and vomit quickly. Further, if any one is to have a limb mutilated, burnt, or sawn, he may drink half an ounce with wine, and whilst he sleeps the member may be cut off without any pain or sense.” After reading the above passages from such well-known authors, it may be asked how it was that the practice of preventing the pain of surgical operations was entirely unknown just prior to 1846.