Read the following passage and answer the question.
Traditional medical historians have long characterized the mid-nineteenth-century adoption of surgical anesthesia—initially ether and later chloroform—as an unambiguous triumph of scientific progress over pain. According to this prevailing narrative, the only substantial resistance to anesthesia came from religious moralists who argued that enduring pain was divinely ordained. However, a newer generation of social historians argues that this traditional narrative overlooks significant opposition from within the medical profession itself. These social historians contend that many prominent nineteenth-century surgeons resisted anesthesia not on religious grounds, but due to deep-seated professional anxieties. For these surgeons, a patient's pain was an essential diagnostic tool and a necessary physiological stimulant that kept the patient biologically engaged during traumatic operations. Furthermore, the administration of anesthesia required the presence of a separate specialist, thereby threatening the surgeon's absolute authority in the operating theater and diluting the dramatic spectacle of the surgical performance.
Based on the passage, the prominent nineteenth-century surgeons discussed by the social historians would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?
- ASurgical procedures utilizing chemical agents are ultimately an unambiguous triumph of scientific progress over pain.
- BSurgeons typically lacked the specialized physiological training necessary to safely administer chemical agents like ether.
- A patient's physical experience of pain can provide the operating physician with vital physiological feedback.Answer
- DThe presence of a separate anesthetist in the operating theater detracts from the patient's biological engagement.
- EAll medical opposition to the use of anesthesia was motivated exclusively by a desire to maintain the surgeon's authority.