LAUSR

An American humor magazine, Puck, covered its February 18, 1886 issue with a political cartoon signed by its artist, G. E. Ciani (born c. 1847, signed below right). In “Her Resolute Opposition” (left), the illustrator depicts a determined Queen Victoria (1819 to 1901, close up above right) struggling to sweep back the tide of public sentiment. At that time, the Irish Parliamentary Party of Charles Parnell (1846 to 1891) had tipped Parliamentary balance away from the Conservatives of Lord Robert Cecil Salisbury (1830 to 1903) and toward the Liberals of William Gladstone (1809 to 1898). Cartoonist Ciani depicts the visages of Parnell and Gladstone cresting the waves of “Home Rule” and “Democracy,” respectively, as they crash by Salisbury to face the monarch’s broom of “Prerogative.” This is nearly 33 yr after Victoria “swept” in aristocratic acceptance and then public enthusiasm for chloroform analgesia and anesthesia during childbirth. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.) George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator and Laureate of the History of Anesthesia, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. [email protected].