The Surgeon As “Swindler”: A Corny Use of Chloroform

Hidden in the Wood Library-Museum Archives is this bifold sheet (top left) containing three autograph pages of “Riddles from Miss C. Corbet” of Adderley, England. Dated “Jany 10th / 56 ” (1856,top right), there are 19 riddles in all. The riddler was 20-year-old Clara Anna Corbet (1835 to 1916), the fourth of eight children born to soon-to-be Rector Richard Corbet and his wife Eleanor. In one instance, Clara likened “a surgeon using Chloroform,” who “cuts away without…pain,” to “a swindler,” who “cuts away without paying” (bottom). Miss Corbet, however, offered no chloroform to palliate the pain of reading her riddle. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research