Metaphor and Anesthesia

Assistant Professor of Anesthesia.Received from the Stanford University School of Medicine, Anesthesia Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, California. Submitted for publication June 2, 1995. Accepted for publication August 7, 1995. Presented in part at the annual meeting of the Society for Health and Human Values, San Diego, California, October 14, 1995.Address reprint requests to Dr. Audrey Shafer: Department of Anesthesiology (112A), Veterans Administration Medical Center, 3801 Miranda Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304.METAPHOR is commonly considered a poetic device and hence irrelevant to the highly technical world of anesthesia, in which practical matters like flowmeters and pulse oximeters prevail. The possibility that literary theory could have any conceivable benefit to the clinician or scientist has