Continuous Caudal Analgesia

Poena Magna, the chief or the great pain of the Romans, which referred to the pangs of childbirth, has been the object of attack by medicine men, mid-wives and physicians for centuries. The fear of it in the hearts of women has been a contributing factor to childless marriages and one of the major factors of the one-child family in our present civilization. The absolute alleviation of it in selected cases has been accomplished by continuous caudal analgesia. failure of medicine men and midwives to deal with this pain adequately, if at all, compelled women in labor to seek the services of physicians. The cries of women in pain, not usually fears concerning the welfare of unborn babies, have brought physicians to the bedside. With physicians came poppy leaves and bitters, wine and morphine, ether and chloroform, nitrous oxide and scopolamine, paraldehyde and the barbiturates, cyclopropane and ethylene,