Hypnotic Analgesia
Pain is the ultimate psychosomatic phenomenon, always representing both tissue injury and the
psychological reaction to it. The first formal study of hypnosis in pain occurred more than a century ago
in India when a Scottish surgeon named Esdaile[26] reported that hypnosis was 80% effective in
producing surgical anesthesia for amputations. He was immediately censured by his colleagues and 10
years later withdrew his findings when a report from Massachusetts General Hospital stated that ether
anesthesia was 90% effective. Indeed, one of Boston surgeons strode to the front of the amphitheater
and announced, "Gentlemen, this is no humbug!" to distinguish the use of ether from hypnosis.