[Magdalen] An unusual experience

[Roger Stokes]

A couple of friends and I went down to London today to, among other 
things, visit the Old Operating Theatre Museum
http://www.thegarret.org.uk/ close to London Bridge Station.  We were 
invited to tag onto a talk being given to a group of pharmacy students 
from Samford University in Alabama which certainly enhanced our visit.

Quite what they made of this primitive operating room in the attic of a 
former church is unclear.  I must admit I am also a bit bemused at the 
fact of a Christian University saying its faith pervades its teaching of 
pharmaceutical practice.  Be that as it may the talk about medical 
understanding and techniques in the 19th century was enlightening.  I am 
thankful I was not alive back then, though I have experienced nitrous 
oxide as an anaesthetic and we were told that ether masks are still used 
by doctors visiting parts of Africa to treat patients there.

Roger