120 [St Martin's Street, June 1786] To Esther Burney Burney

Surgery and Emotion: The Era Before Anaesthesia

“…She was deeply apprehensive about the procedure, confiding to her sister Esther that the 'dread and repugnance, from a thousand reasons besides the pain almost shook all my faculties'. 6 She had every reason to be fearful; Dubois had told her that she must expect to suffer very severely, and so she did:…”