In this fast-paced, fact-packed session, historical novelist Georgie Blalock takes writers on a journey through the history of pain management and anesthesia, showing how understanding what surgery really felt like in different eras can bring historical fiction to life.

You’ll learn about:

• Pre-anesthesia medicine: everyday pain relief, herbal narcotics, and “dwale” mixtures that could soothe—or kill.

• The rise of laudanum, morphine, heroin, and cocaine: their uses, dangers, and impact on 19th-century patients and doctors.

• Aspirin and non-narcotic pain relief: how chemistry introduced safer, reliable options at the turn of the 20th century.

• Surgery before and after anesthesia: the realities of speed, stress, and the emotional toll on surgeons.

• Breakthrough anesthetics: nitrous oxide, ether, chloroform, early delivery devices, and the growing role of anesthetists.

• Modern advances: barbiturates, injectable anesthetics, and the professionalization of anesthesiology during the World Wars.

Practical takeaways for historical fiction writers:

• How to balance accuracy with narrative flow and reader expectations.

• How to use historical treatments, surgeries, and anesthesia as character-building crucibles.

• When and how to justify characters behaving slightly ahead of their era.

• How to make surgical and medical scenes vivid, immersive, and emotionally resonant.

Perfect for authors writing battlefield medicine, childbirth, injuries, or hospital scenes, this session equips you to ground your work in historical reality while keeping readers fully engaged in your story world.