Medical Classics: Essays on the First Hundred Years of Anaesthesia, by W. Stanley Sykes.
Review by Aidan M. O’Donnell. BMJ 2008; 337: a794.
In many departments where I have worked, there is a shelf in the library which contains old, dusty books about the history of anaesthesia. Browsing one day, I picked up one old book, and found I could not put it down.
Dr. William Stanley Sykes was an anaesthetist in Leeds before the Second World War. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Greece for some years. At the end of the war he returned to civilian life to find anaesthesia had evolved in the intervening years, and he considered his skills to be obsolete. He decided to retire, and devote his life to the study of anaesthetic history and equipment. From his studies, he began to write essays about points which interested him as he went along.
What followed was a collection of essays of enormous erudition. Sykes usually wrote about what interested him, but sometimes what impressed him or angered him. The topics were discursive, and seemingly random, but by deviating from well-trodden paths of the history texts, Sykes unfailingly gave us a fresh angle. Amid some of the essays are occasional entertaining digressions, including brief accounts of his own experience as an anaesthetist in the prison camp, and some astonishing case histories, such as David Livingstone’s own account of his mauling by a lion.
Sykes ferreted out many original documents and sources in his endeavours to set the record straight. He showed that chloroform was used as an anaesthetic six months before James Young Simpson anaesthetised his dinner guests with it, and that the word “anaesthesia” appeared in print over a year before Oliver Wendell Holmes thought he invented it. He told us about many failed ideas and dead ends: neither rectal ether nor subcutaneous oxygen made it widely into practice, although curare managed it after a somewhat shaky start.
Sykes was unrelenting in his condemnation of what he saw as inefficiency, stupidity or ignorance. About one particular dangerous-looking device, Sykes wrote “It is not stated how long this machine was in use before it blew up.” In another chapter, he asked in exasperation: “Is there any device in the whole of anaesthesia which has not killed somebody?”
But where he found excellence, Sykes was quick to praise. Of Joseph Lister he wrote: “He did not gain his position of unchallenged pre-eminence by making piddling little improvements… Instead he completely remodelled the whole of operative surgery and changed it from a crude and dangerous handicraft into an expanding and much safer science.”
The first volume of Essays was published in 1960. A second followed shortly after Sykes’ sudden death in 1961. Some unpublished material was collected into a third volume by Dr. Richard Ellis and published in 1982. Sykes’ unusual approach, scholarly excellence and uncompromising forthrightness of tone make his Essays a stimulating and enjoyable read, and you might even find a copy beneath the dust in your own anaesthetic library.
Sykes WS. 1960. Essays on the First Hundred Years of Anaesthesia. (2 vols) Edinburgh, Churchill-Livingstone.
Sykes WS, Ellis RH (ed). 1982. Essays on the First Hundred Years of Anaesthesia. (vol. 3) Edinburgh, Churchill-Livingstone.
Copyright © Aidan O’Donnell 2008.
This article first appeared in the British Medical Journal in 2008.
Unauthorised reproduction prohibited.
Aidan O'Donnell 
Sorry to be so late in arriving to this post, but I am researching a William Stanley Sykes, Temporary Surgeon RNVR, who was borne on HMS Sabrina in 1917. I wondered if any personal information held in this book might confirm that the two W.S. Sykeses are one and the same?
Thank you!
Dear Jane,
This is a very interesting request. I am not sure how much I can help you. There are a very few biographical details about Sykes in the books. I cannot directly confirm his assignment to any naval vessel, or any service in the navy. I can tell you that his professional qualifications were MBBChir (Cantab), DA, and he was awarded the MBE at some point. The flyleaf says that he was “Late anaesthetist to the General Infirmary at Leeds, to the Hospital for Women and St. James’s Hospital, Leeds, to the Leeds Dental Hospital, to the Halifax Royal Infirmary and to the Dewsbury General Hospital”. He lived from 1894 to 1961, which is compatible with him serving on a ship as surgeon in 1917, though he would have been only about 23.
The Foreword says he was in practice in Morley in 1927, and wrote his first book “A Manual of General Practice” there. He was taken prisoner in WWII in Greece, and was in Ceylon for a short period in the same year (but which year?). His wife’s name was Nancy (Nan), and he talks about her with great affection in his work.
Apart from that, there is no other pertinent information I can offer you, although there is a reasonable portrait of him inside the cover. I would be happy to email you a scan of the portrait if you send me an email address (mine is on my About Me page).
The third volume of Sykes’ work was collected and edited by Richard H. Ellis of London, who had access to all of Sykes’ personal papers. I don’t know if Dr. Ellis is still alive, or whether he might be somehow contactable to offer more info.
Please keep me posted about how you get on.
Kind regards,
Aidan.
Hi Aidan
Well, blow me down with a penny whistle – I should have investigated Google harder.
Here is his obituary:
And here he is in the National Portrait Gallery, listed as a – no, I’ll let you find out for yourself 😉
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp57950/william-stanley-sykes?search=sas&sText=william+stanley+sykes
I didn’t think it could be the same person, but it all tallies. 23 is about right for a Tempy Surgeon RNVR not having finished his medical training. I’ll contact you direct later with details of the article he wrote about his time in the North Sea in 1917.
Sorry – obituary pasted itself at the foot of that entry, not where I meant…
Hi Jane. I knew he was also a fiction writer, but it’s very interesting that the National Portrait Gallery have this listed as his occupation. I haven’t read any of his fiction but I will track it down eventually. The NPG portraits are better than the one I have (which is in profile and therefore doesn’t show the face so well). All the other details tally nicely; it must be the same man.
Sykes remains one of my heroes and I am delighted that people are still interested in him and his work. I would be very interested to read that article.
Best wishes,
Aidan.