16. Yi-Li Wu, PhD on the forgotten global history of anesthesia

In this episode of Sentience, Yi-Li Wu, PhD, Associate Professor of History and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, explores the overlooked history of anesthesia and pain management. We discuss medieval Chinese surgical practices, herbal anesthetics, and the transmission of medical knowledge across centuries and cultures. Wu explains how physicians balanced the therapeutic and toxic effects of powerful plants, why much of this knowledge was passed down orally rather than written, and how modern narratives of scientific discovery often obscure the broader global networks behind medicine. The conversation also explores traumatic injuries, military medicine, and what the history of anesthesia reveals about how humans everywhere have confronted pain, surgery, and healing.Chapters / Timestamps(00:00) – Welcome to Sentience and meeting Yi-Li Wu(01:02) – From women’s history to the history of Chinese medicine(07:18) – Traumatic injuries and the problem of unwritten medical knowledge(10:30) – Discovering a 14th-century Chinese anesthesia recipe(13:36) – Ancient pain management and the legend of Hua Tuo(15:42) – Empirical medicine and how early physicians understood anesthetics(18:03) – Poison, potency, and balancing dangerous medicines(21:40) – Datura, bone setting, and independent discoveries across cultures(26:17) – Surgery, warfare, and what Hua Tuo may really have done(33:03) – Japanese anesthesia, Seishu Hanaoka, and shared medical traditions(37:35) – Why scientific breakthroughs are rarely the work of one person(39:28) – Rethinking the global history of anesthesia(43:49) – Recovering lost medical histories and finishing the book project