title: Attachment disorder

text: Typical attachment development begins with unlearned infant reactions to social signals from caregivers. The ability to send and receive social communications through facial expressions, gestures and voice develops with social experience by seven to nine months. This makes it possible for an infant to interpret messages of calm or alarm from face or voice. At about eight months, infants typically begin to respond with fear to unfamiliar or startling situations, and to look to the faces of familiar caregivers for information that either justifies or soothes their fear. This developmental combination of social skills and the emergence of fear reactions results in attachment behavior such as proximity-seeking, if a familiar, sensitive, responsive, and cooperative adult is available. Further developments in attachment, such as negotiation of separation in the toddler and preschool period, depend on factors such as the caregiver's interaction style and ability to understand the child's emotional communications.


title: Attachment disorder

text: With insensitive or unresponsive caregivers, or frequent changes, an infant may have few experiences that encourage proximity seeking to a familiar person. An infant who experiences fear but who cannot find comforting information in an adult's face and voice may develop atypical ways of coping with fearfulness such as the maintenance of distance from adults, or the seeking of proximity to all adults. These symptoms accord with the DSM criteria for reactive attachment disorder. Either of these behavior patterns may create a developmental trajectory leading ever farther from typical attachment processes such as the development of an internal working model of social relationships that facilitates both the giving and the receiving of care from others.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Atypical development of fearfulness, with a constitutional tendency either to excessive or inadequate fear reactions, might be necessary before an infant is vulnerable to the effects of poor attachment experiences.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Alternatively, the two variations of RAD may develop from the same inability to develop "stranger-wariness" due to inadequate care. Appropriate fear responses may only be able to develop after an infant has first begun to form a selective attachment. An infant who is not in a position to do this cannot afford not to show interest in any person as they may be potential attachment figures. Faced with a swift succession of carers the child may have no opportunity to form a selective attachment until the possible biologically determined sensitive period for developing stranger-wariness has passed. It is thought this process may lead to the disinhibited form.


title: Attachment disorder

text: In the inhibited form infants behave as if their attachment system has been "switched off". However the innate capacity for attachment behavior cannot be lost. This may explain why children diagnosed with the inhibited form of RAD from institutions almost invariably go on to show formation of attachment behavior to good carers. However children with the inhibited form as a consequence of neglect and frequent changes of caregiver continue to show the inhibited form for far longer when placed in families.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Additionally, the development of Theory of Mind "may" play a role in emotional development. Theory of Mind is the ability to know that the experience of knowledge and intention lies behind human actions such as facial expressions. Although it is reported that very young infants have different responses to humans than to non-human objects, Theory of Mind develops relatively gradually and possibly results from predictable interactions with adults. However, some ability of this kind must be in place before mutual communication through gaze or other gesture can occur, as it does by seven to nine months. Some neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, have been attributed to the absence of the mental functions that underlie Theory of Mind. It is possible that the congenital absence of this ability, or the lack of experiences with caregivers who communicate in a predictable fashion, could underlie the development of reactive attachment disorder.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Recognised assessment methods of attachment styles, difficulties or disorders include the Strange Situation procedure (Mary Ainsworth), the separation and reunion procedure and the Preschool Assessment of Attachment ("PAA"), the Observational Record of the Caregiving Environment ("ORCE") and the Attachment Q-sort ("AQ-sort").


title: Attachment disorder

text: More recent research also uses the Disturbances of Attachment Interview or "DAI" developed by Smyke and Zeanah, (1999). This is a semi-structured interview designed to be administered by clinicians to caregivers. It covers 12 items, namely having a discriminated, preferred adult, seeking comfort when distressed, responding to comfort when offered, social and emotional reciprocity, emotional regulation, checking back after venturing away from the care giver, reticence with unfamiliar adults, willingness to go off with relative strangers, self endangering behavior, excessive clinging, vigilance/hypercompliance and role reversal.


title: Attachment disorder

text: ICD-10 describes Reactive Attachment Disorder of Childhood, known as RAD, and Disinhibited Disorder of Childhood, less well known as DAD. DSM-IV-TR also describes Reactive Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Early Childhood. It divides this into two subtypes, Inhibited Type and Disinhibited Type, both known as RAD. The two classifications are similar and both include:


title: Attachment disorder

text: ICD-10 includes in its diagnosis psychological and physical abuse and injury in addition to neglect. This is somewhat controversial, being a "commission" rather than "omission" and because abuse in and of itself does not lead to attachment disorder [why not?].


title: Attachment disorder

text: The inhibited form is described as "a failure to initiate or respond ... to most social interactions, as manifest by excessively inhibited responses" and such infants do not seek and accept comfort at times of threat, alarm or distress, thus failing to maintain 'proximity', an essential element of attachment behavior. The disinhibited form shows "indiscriminate sociability ... excessive familiarity with relative strangers" (DSM-IV-TR) and therefore a lack of 'specificity', the second basic element of attachment behavior. The ICD-10 descriptions are comparable. 'Disinhibited' and 'inhibited' are not opposites in terms of attachment disorder and can co-exist in the same child. The inhibited form has a greater tendency to ameliorate with an appropriate caregiver whilst the disinhibited form is more enduring.


title: Attachment disorder

text: While RAD is likely to occur following neglectful and abusive childcare, there should be no automatic diagnosis on this basis alone as children can form stable attachments and social relationships despite marked abuse and neglect. Abuse can occur alongside the required factors but on its own does not explain attachment disorder. Experiences of abuse are associated with the development of disorganised attachment, in which the child prefers a familiar caregiver, but responds to that person in an unpredictable and somewhat bizarre way. Within official classifications, attachment disorganization is a risk factor but not in itself an attachment disorder. Further, although attachment disorders tend to occur in the context of some institutions, repeated changes of primary caregiver, or extremely neglectful identifiable primary caregivers who show persistent disregard for the child's basic attachment needs, not all children raised in these conditions develop an attachment disorder.


title: Attachment disorder

text: There are a variety of mainstream prevention programs and treatment approaches for attachment disorder, attachment problems and moods or behaviors considered to be potential problems within the context of attachment theory. All such approaches for infants and younger children concentrate on increasing the responsiveness and sensitivity of the caregiver, or if that is not possible, changing the caregiver. Such approaches include 'Watch, wait and wonder,' manipulation of sensitive responsiveness, modified 'Interaction Guidance,'. 'Preschool Parent Psychotherapy,'. Circle of Security', Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), the New Orleans Intervention, and Parent-Child psychotherapy. Other known treatment methods include Developmental, Individual-difference, Relationship-based therapy (DIR) (also referred to as "Floor Time") by Stanley Greenspan, although DIR is primarily directed to treatment of pervasive developmental disorders Some of these approaches, such as that suggested by Dozier, consider the attachment status of the adult caregiver to play an important role in the development of the emotional connection between adult and child. This includes foster parents, as children with poor attachment experiences often do not elicit appropriate caregiver responses from their attachment behaviors despite 'normative' care.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Treatment for reactive attachment disorder for children usually involves a mix of therapy, counseling, and parenting education. These must be designed to make sure the child has a safe environment to live in and to develop positive interactions with caregivers and improves their relationships with their peers.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Medication can be used as a way to treat similar conditions, like depression, anxiety, or hyperactivity; however, there is no quick fix for treating reactive attachment disorder. A pediatrician may recommend a treatment plan. For example, a mix of family therapy, individual psychological counseling, play therapy, special education services and parenting skills classes.


title: Attachment disorder

text: In the absence of officially recognized diagnostic criteria, and beyond the ambit of the discourse on a broader set of criteria discussed above, the term attachment disorder has been increasingly used by some clinicians to refer to a broader set of children whose behavior may be affected by lack of a primary attachment figure, a seriously unhealthy attachment relationship with a primary caregiver, or a disrupted attachment relationship. Although there are no studies examining diagnostic accuracy, concern is expressed as to the potential for over-diagnosis based on broad checklists and 'snapshots'. This form of therapy, including diagnosis and accompanying parenting techniques, is scientifically unvalidated and is not considered to be part of mainstream psychology or, despite its name, to be based on attachment theory, with which it is considered incompatible. It has been described as potentially abusive and a pseudoscientific intervention, that has resulted in tragic outcomes for children.


title: Attachment disorder

text: A common feature of this form of diagnosis within attachment therapy is the use of extensive lists of "symptoms" which include many behaviours that are likely to be a consequence of neglect or abuse, but are not related to attachment, or not related to any clinical disorder at all. Such lists have been described as "wildly inclusive". The APSAC Taskforce (2006) gives examples of such lists ranging across multiple domains from some elements within the DSM-IV criteria to entirely non-specific behavior such as developmental lags, destructive behaviors, refusal to make eye contact, cruelty to animals and siblings, lack of cause and effect thinking, preoccupation with fire, blood and gore, poor peer relationships, stealing, lying, lack of a conscience, persistent nonsense questions or incessant chatter, poor impulse control, abnormal speech patterns, fighting for control over everything, and hoarding or gorging on food. Some checklists suggest that among infants, "prefers dad to mom" or "wants to hold the bottle as soon as possible" are indicative of attachment problems. The APSAC Taskforce expresses concern that "high rates of false positive diagnoses are virtually certain" and that "posting these types of lists on web sites that also serve as marketing tools may lead many parents or others to conclude inaccurately that their children have attachment disorders".


title: Attachment disorder

text: There is also a considerable variety of treatments for alleged attachment disorders diagnosed on the controversial alternative basis outlined above, popularly known as attachment therapy. These therapies have little or no evidence base and vary from talking or play therapies to more extreme forms of physical and coercive techniques, of which the best known are holding therapy, rebirthing, rage-reduction and the Evergreen model. In general these therapies are aimed at adopted or fostered children with a view to creating attachment in these children to their new caregivers. Critics maintain these therapies are not based on an accepted version of attachment theory. The theoretical base is broadly a combination of regression and catharsis, accompanied by parenting methods which emphasise obedience and parental control. These therapies concentrate on changing the child rather than the caregiver. An estimated six children have died as a consequence of the more coercive forms of such treatments and the application of the accompanying parenting techniques.


title: Attachment disorder

text: Two of the most well-known cases are those of Candace Newmaker in 2001 and the Gravelles in 2003 through 2005. Following the associated publicity, some advocates of attachment therapy began to alter views and practices to be less potentially dangerous to children. This change may have been hastened by the publication of a Task Force Report on the subject in January 2006, commissioned by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) which was largely critical of attachment therapy, although these practices continue. In April 2007, ATTACh, an organisation originally set up by attachment therapists, formally adopted a White Paper stating its unequivocal opposition to the use of coercive practices in therapy and parenting.


title: Father Christmas

text: Father Christmas is the traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. Although now known as a Christmas gift-bringer, and typically considered to be synonymous with Santa Claus, he was originally part of a much older and unrelated English folkloric tradition. The recognisably modern figure of the English Father Christmas developed in the late Victorian period, but Christmas had been personified for centuries before then.


title: Father Christmas

text: English personifications of Christmas were first recorded in the 15th century, with Father Christmas himself first appearing in the mid 17th century in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The Puritan-controlled English government had legislated to abolish Christmas, considering it papist, and had outlawed its traditional customs. Royalist political pamphleteers, linking the old traditions with their cause, adopted Old Father Christmas as the symbol of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer. Following the Restoration in 1660, Father Christmas's profile declined. His character was maintained during the late 18th and into the 19th century by the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays.


title: Father Christmas

text: Until Victorian times, Father Christmas was concerned with adult feasting and merry-making. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents, nocturnal visits, stockings, chimneys or reindeer. But as later Victorian Christmases developed into child-centric family festivals, Father Christmas became a bringer of gifts.


title: Father Christmas

text: The popular American myth of Santa Claus arrived in England in the 1850s and Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. By the 1880s the new customs had become established, with the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas. He was often illustrated wearing a long red hooded gown trimmed with white fur.


title: Father Christmas

text: Most residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the 20th century, and modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous.


title: Father Christmas

text: The custom of merrymaking and feasting at Christmastide first appears in the historical record during the High Middle Ages (c 1100–1300). This almost certainly represented a continuation of pre-Christian midwinter celebrations in Britain of which—as the historian Ronald Hutton has pointed out—"we have no details at all". Personifications came later, and when they did they reflected the existing custom.


title: Father Christmas

text: The first known English personification of Christmas was associated with merry-making, singing and drinking. A carol attributed to Richard Smart, Rector of Plymtree in Devon from 1435 to 1477, has 'Sir Christemas' announcing the news of Christ's birth and encouraging his listeners to drink: ""Buvez bien par toute la compagnie", / Make good cheer and be right merry, / And sing with us now joyfully: Nowell, nowell."


title: Father Christmas

text: Many late medieval Christmas customs incorporated both sacred and secular themes. In Norwich in January 1443, at a traditional battle between the flesh and the spirit (represented by Christmas and Lent), John Gladman, crowned and disguised as 'King of Christmas', rode behind a pageant of the months "disguysed as the seson requird" on a horse decorated with tinfoil.


title: Father Christmas

text: In most of England the archaic word 'Yule' had been replaced by 'Christmas' by the 11th century, but in some places 'Yule' survived as the normal dialect term. The City of York maintained an annual St Thomas's Day celebration of "The Riding of Yule and his Wife" which involved a figure representing Yule who carried bread and a leg of lamb. In 1572 the riding was suppressed on the orders of the Archbishop, who complained of the "undecent and uncomely disguising" which drew multitudes of people from divine service.


title: Father Christmas

text: Such personifications, illustrating the medieval fondness for pageantry and symbolism, extended throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods with Lord of Misrule characters, sometimes called 'Captain Christmas', 'Prince Christmas' or 'The Christmas Lord', presiding over feasting and entertainment in grand houses, university colleges and Inns of Court.


title: Father Christmas

text: In his allegorical play "Summer's Last Will and Testament", written in about 1592, Thomas Nashe introduced for comic effect a miserly Christmas character who refuses to keep the feast. He is reminded by Summer of the traditional role that he ought to be playing: "Christmas, how chance thou com’st not as the rest, / Accompanied with some music, or some song? / A merry carol would have graced thee well; / Thy ancestors have used it heretofore."


title: Father Christmas

text: Early 17th century writers used the techniques of personification and allegory as a means of defending Christmas from attacks by radical Protestants.


title: Father Christmas

text: Responding to a perceived decline in the levels of Christmas hospitality provided by the gentry, Ben Jonson in "Christmas, His Masque" (1616) dressed his Old Christmas in out-of-date fashions: "attir'd in round Hose, long Stockings, a close Doublet, a high crownd Hat with a Broach, a long thin beard, a Truncheon, little Ruffes, white shoes, his Scarffes, and Garters tyed crosse". Surrounded by guards, Christmas asserts his rightful place in the Protestant Church and protests against attempts to exclude him: "Why Gentlemen, doe you know what you doe? ha! would you ha'kept me out? Christmas, old Christmas? Christmas of London, and Captaine Christmas? ... they would not let me in: I must come another time! a good jeast, as if I could come more then once a yeare; why, I am no dangerous person, and so I told my friends, o'the Guard. I am old Gregorie Christmas still, and though I come out of Popes-head-alley as good a Protestant, as any i'my Parish."


title: Father Christmas

text: The stage directions to "The Springs Glorie", a 1638 court masque by Thomas Nabbes, state, "Christmas is personated by an old reverend Gentleman in a furr'd gown and cappe &c." Shrovetide and Christmas dispute precedence, and Shrovetide issues a challenge: "I say Christmas you are past date, you are out of the Almanack. Resigne, resigne." To which Christmas responds: "Resigne to thee! I that am the King of good cheere and feasting, though I come but once a yeare to raigne over bak't, boyled, roast and plum-porridge, will have being in despight of thy lard-ship."


title: Father Christmas

text: This sort of character was to feature repeatedly over the next 250 years in pictures, stage plays and folk dramas. Initially known as 'Sir Christmas' or 'Lord Christmas', he later became increasingly referred to as 'Father Christmas'.


title: Father Christmas

text: The rise of puritanism led to accusations of popery in connection with pre-reformation Christmas traditions. When the Puritans took control of government in the mid-1640s they made concerted efforts to abolish Christmas and to outlaw its traditional customs. For 15 years from around 1644, before and during the Interregnum of 1649-1660, the celebration of Christmas in England was forbidden. The suppression was given greater legal weight from June 1647 when parliament passed an "Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals" which formally abolished Christmas in its entirety, along with the other traditional church festivals of Easter and Whitsun.


title: Father Christmas

text: It was in this context that Royalist pamphleteers linked the old traditions of Christmas with the cause of King and Church, while radical puritans argued for the suppression of Christmas both in its religious and its secular aspects. In the hands of Royalist pamphlet writers, Old Father Christmas served as the symbol and spokesman of 'the good old days' of feasting and good cheer, and it became popular for Christmastide's defenders to present him as lamenting past times.


title: Father Christmas

text: "The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas" (January 1646) describes a discussion between a town crier and a Royalist gentlewoman enquiring after Old Father Christmas who 'is gone from hence'. Its anonymous author, a parliamentarian, presents Father Christmas in a negative light, concentrating on his allegedly popish attributes: "For age, this hoarie headed man was of great yeares, and as white as snow; he entred the Romish Kallender time out of mind; [he] is old ...; he was full and fat as any dumb Docter of them all. He looked under the consecrated Laune sleeves as big as Bul-beefe ... but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late ... But yet some other markes that you may know him by, is that the wanton Women dote after him; he helped them to so many new Gownes, Hatts, and Hankerches, and other fine knacks, of which he hath a pack on his back, in which is good store of all sorts, besides the fine knacks that he got out of their husbands' pockets for household provisions for him. He got Prentises, Servants, and Schollars many play dayes, and therefore was well beloved by them also, and made all merry with Bagpipes, Fiddles, and other musicks, Giggs, Dances, and Mummings."


title: Father Christmas

text: The character of 'Christmas' (also called 'father Christmas') speaks in a pamphlet of 1652, immediately after the English Civil War, published anonymously by the satirical Royalist poet John Taylor: "The Vindication of Christmas or, His Twelve Yeares' Observations upon the Times". A frontispiece illustrates an old, bearded Christmas in a brimmed hat, a long open robe and undersleeves. Christmas laments the pitiful quandary he has fallen into since he came into "this headlesse countrey". "I was in good hope that so long a misery would have made them glad to bid a merry Christmas welcome. But welcome or not welcome, I am come..." He concludes with a verse: "Lets dance and sing, and make good chear, / For Christmas comes but once a year."


title: Father Christmas

text: In 1658 Josiah King published "The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas" (the earliest citation for the specific term 'Father Christmas' recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary). King portrays Father Christmas as a white-haired old man who is on trial for his life based on evidence laid against him by the Commonwealth. Father Christmas's counsel mounts the defence: "Me thinks my Lord, the very Clouds blush, to see this old Gentleman thus egregiously abused. if at any time any have abused themselves by immoderate eating, and drinking or otherwise spoil the creatures, it is none of this old mans fault; neither ought he to suffer for it; for example the Sun and the Moon are by the heathens worship’d are they therefore bad because idolized? so if any abuse this old man, they are bad for abusing him, not he bad, for being abused." The jury acquits.


title: Father Christmas

text: Following the Restoration in 1660, most traditional Christmas celebrations were revived, although as these were no longer contentious the historic documentary sources become fewer.


title: Father Christmas

text: In 1678 Josiah King reprinted his 1658 pamphlet with additional material. In this version, the restored Father Christmas is looking better: "[he] look't so smug and pleasant, his cherry cheeks appeared through his thin milk white locks, like [b]lushing Roses vail'd with snow white Tiffany ... the true Emblem of Joy and Innocence."


title: Father Christmas

text: "Old Christmass Returnd", a ballad collected by Samuel Pepys, celebrated the revival of festivities in the latter part of the century: "Old Christmass is come for to keep open house / He scorns to be guilty of starving a mouse, / Then come boyes and welcome, for dyet the chief / Plumb pudding, Goose, Capon, minc't pies & Roast beef".


title: Father Christmas

text: As interest in Christmas customs waned, Father Christmas's profile declined. He still continued to be regarded as Christmas's presiding spirit, although his occasional earlier associations with the Lord of Misrule died out with the disappearance of the Lord of Misrule himself. The historian Ronald Hutton notes, "after a taste of genuine misrule during the Interregnum nobody in the ruling elite seems to have had any stomach for simulating it." Hutton also found "patterns of entertainment at late Stuart Christmases are remarkably timeless [and] nothing very much seems to have altered during the next century either." The diaries of 18th and early 19th century clergy take little note of any Christmas traditions.


title: Father Christmas

text: In "The Country Squire", a play of 1732, Old Christmas is depicted as someone who is rarely-found: a generous squire. The character Scabbard remarks, "Men are grown so ... stingy, now-a-days, that there is scarce One, in ten Parishes, makes any House-keeping. ... Squire Christmas ... keeps a good House, or else I do not know of One besides." When invited to spend Christmas with the squire, he comments "I will ... else I shall forget Christmas, for aught I see." Similar opinions were expressed in "Round About Our Coal Fire ... with some curious Memories of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present" (1734, reprinted with Father Christmas subtitle 1796).


title: Father Christmas

text: David Garrick's popular 1774 Drury Lane production of "A Christmas Tale" included a personified Christmas character who announced "Behold a personage well known to fame; / Once lov'd and honour'd – Christmas is my name! /.../ I, English hearts rejoic'd in days of yore; / for new strange modes, imported by the score, / You will not sure turn Christmas out of door!"


title: Father Christmas

text: By the late 18th century Father Christmas had become a stock character in the Christmas folk plays later known as mummers plays. During the following century they became probably the most widespread of all calendar customs. Hundreds of villages had their own mummers who performed traditional plays around the neighbourhood, especially at the big houses. Father Christmas appears as a character in plays of the Southern England type, being mostly confined to plays from the south and west of England and Wales. His ritual opening speech is characterised by variants of a couplet closely reminiscent of John Taylor's "But welcome or not welcome, I am come..." from 1652.


title: Father Christmas

text: During the Victorian period Christmas customs enjoyed a significant revival, including the figure of Father Christmas himself as the emblem of 'good cheer'. His physical appearance at this time became more variable, and he was by no means always portrayed as the old and bearded figure imagined by 17th century writers.


title: Father Christmas

text: Scott's phrase Merry England has been adopted by historians to describe the romantic notion that there was a golden age of the English past, allegedly since lost, that was characterised by universal hospitality and charity. The notion had a profound influence on the way that popular customs were seen, and most of the 19th century writers who bemoaned the state of contemporary Christmases were, at least to some extent, yearning for the mythical Merry England version.


title: Father Christmas

text: Thomas Hervey's "The Book of Christmas" (1836), illustrated by Robert Seymour, exemplifies this view. In Hervey's personification of the lost charitable festival, "Old Father Christmas, at the head of his numerous and uproarious family, might ride his goat through the streets of the city and the lanes of the village, but he dismounted to sit for some few moments by each man's hearth; while some one or another of his merry sons would break away, to visit the remote farm-houses or show their laughing faces at many a poor man's door." Seymour's illustration shows Old Christmas dressed in a fur gown, crowned with a holly wreath, and riding a yule goat.


title: Father Christmas

text: In an extended allegory, Hervey imagines his contemporary Old Father Christmas as a white-bearded magician dressed in a long robe and crowned with holly. His children are identified as Roast Beef (Sir Loin) and his faithful squire or bottle-holder Plum Pudding; the slender figure of Wassail with her fount of perpetual youth; a 'tricksy spirit' who bears the bowl and is on the best of terms with the Turkey; Mumming; Misrule, with a feather in his cap; the Lord of Twelfth Night under a state-canopy of cake and wearing his ancient crown; Saint Distaff looking like an old maid ("she used to be a sad romp; but her merriest days we fear are over"); Carol singing; the Waits; and the twin-faced Janus.


title: Father Christmas

text: Hervey ends by lamenting the lost "uproarious merriment" of Christmas, and calls on his readers "who know anything of the 'old, old, very old, gray-bearded gentleman' or his family to aid us in our search after them; and with their good help we will endeavor to restore them to some portion of their ancient honors in England".


title: Father Christmas

text: Father Christmas or Old Christmas, represented as a jolly-faced bearded man often surrounded by plentiful food and drink, started to appear regularly in illustrated magazines of the 1840s. He was dressed in a variety of costumes and usually had holly on his head, as in these illustrations from the "Illustrated London News":


title: Father Christmas

text: Charles Dickens's 1843 novel "A Christmas Carol" was highly influential, and has been credited both with reviving interest in Christmas in England and with shaping the themes attached to it. A famous image from the novel is John Leech's illustration of the 'Ghost of Christmas Present'. Although not explicitly named Father Christmas, the character wears a holly wreath, is shown sitting among food, drink and wassail bowl, and is dressed in the traditional loose furred gown—but in green rather than the red that later become ubiquitous.


title: Father Christmas

text: Old Father Christmas continued to make his annual appearance in Christmas folk plays throughout the 19th century, his appearance varying considerably according to local custom. Sometimes, as in Hervey's book of 1836, he was portrayed (below left) as a hunchback.


title: Father Christmas

text: One unusual portrayal (below centre) was described several times by William Sandys between 1830 and 1852, all in essentially the same terms: "Father Christmas is represented as a grotesque old man, with a large mask and comic wig, and a huge club in his hand." This representation is considered by the folklore scholar Peter Millington to be the result of the southern Father Christmas replacing the northern Beelzebub character in a hybrid play. A spectator to a Worcestershire version of the "St George" play in 1856 noted, "Beelzebub was identical with Old Father Christmas."


title: Father Christmas

text: A mummers play mentioned in "The Book of Days" (1864) opened with "Old Father Christmas, bearing, as emblematic devices, the holly bough, wassail-bowl, &c". A corresponding illustration (below right) shows the character wearing not only a holly wreath but also a gown with a hood.


title: Father Christmas

text: In a Hampshire folk play of 1860 Father Christmas is portrayed as a disabled soldier: "[he] wore breeches and stockings, carried a begging-box, and conveyed himself upon two sticks; his arms were striped with chevrons like a noncommissioned officer."


title: Father Christmas

text: In the latter part of the 19th century and the early years of the next the folk play tradition in England rapidly faded, and the plays almost died out after the First World War taking their ability to influence the character of Father Christmas with them.


title: Father Christmas

text: In pre-Victorian personifications, Father Christmas had been concerned essentially with adult feasting and games. He had no particular connection with children, nor with the giving of presents. But as Victorian Christmases developed into family festivals centred mainly on children, Father Christmas started to be associated with the giving of gifts.


title: Father Christmas

text: The Cornish Quaker diarist Barclay Fox relates a family party given on 26 December 1842 that featured "the venerable effigies of Father Christmas with scarlet coat & cocked hat, stuck all over with presents for the guests, by his side the old year, a most dismal & haggard old beldame in a night cap and spectacles, then 1843 [the new year], a promising baby asleep in a cradle".


title: Father Christmas

text: In Britain, the first evidence of a child writing letters to Father Christmas requesting gift has been found in 1895.


title: Father Christmas

text: The figure of Santa Claus had originated in the US, drawing at least partly upon Dutch St Nicolas traditions. A New York publication of 1821, "A New-Year’s Present", contained an illustrated poem "Old Santeclaus with Much Delight" in which a Santa figure on a reindeer sleigh brings presents for good children and a "long, black birchen rod" for use on the bad ones. In 1823 came the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", usually attributed to the New York writer Clement Clarke Moore, which developed the character further. Moore's poem became immensely popular and Santa Claus customs, initially localized in the Dutch American areas, were becoming general in the United States by the middle of the century.


title: Father Christmas

text: The January 1848 edition of "Howitt's Journal of Literature and Popular Progress", published in London, carried an illustrated article entitled "New Year's Eve in Different Nations". This noted that one of the chief features of the American New Year's Eve was a custom carried over from the Dutch, namely the arrival of Santa Claus with gifts for the children. Santa Claus is "no other than the Pelz Nickel of Germany ... the good Saint Nicholas of Russia ... He arrives in Germany about a fortnight before Christmas, but as may be supposed from all the visits he has to pay there, and the length of his voyage, he does not arrive in America, until this eve."


title: Father Christmas

text: In 1851 advertisements began appearing in Liverpool newspapers for a new transatlantic passenger service to and from New York aboard the Eagle Line's ship "Santa Claus", and returning visitors and emigrants to the British Isles on this and other vessels will have been familiar with the American figure. There were some early adoptions in Britain. A Scottish reference has Santa Claus leaving presents on New Year's Eve 1852, with children "hanging their stockings up on each side of the fire-place, in their sleeping apartments, at night, and waiting patiently till morning, to see what Santa Claus puts into them during their slumbers". In Ireland in 1853, on the other hand, presents were being left on Christmas Eve according to a character in a newspaper short story who says "... tomorrow will be Christmas. What will Santa Claus bring us?" A poem published in Belfast in 1858 includes the lines "The children sleep; they dream of him, the fairy, / Kind Santa Claus, who with a right good will / Comes down the chimney with a footstep airy ..."


title: Father Christmas

text: "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was published in England in December 1853 in "Notes and Queries". An explanatory note states that the St Nicholas figure is known as Santa Claus in New York State and as Krishkinkle in Pennsylvania.


title: Father Christmas

text: 1854 marked the first English publication of "Carl Krinkin; or, The Christmas Stocking" by the popular American author Susan Warner. The novel was published three times in London in 1854–5, and there were several later editions. Characters in the book include both Santa Claus (complete with sleigh, stocking and chimney), leaving presents on Christmas Eve and—separately—Old Father Christmas. The Stocking of the title tells of how in England, "a great many years ago", it saw Father Christmas enter with his traditional refrain "Oh! here come I, old father Christmas, welcome or not ..." He wore a crown of yew and ivy, and he carried a long staff topped with holly-berries. His dress "was a long brown robe which fell down about his feet, and on it were sewed little spots of white cloth to represent snow".


title: Father Christmas

text: As the US-inspired customs became popular in England, Father Christmas started to take on Santa's attributes. His costume became more standardised, and although depictions often still showed him carrying holly, the holly crown became rarer and was often replaced with a hood. It still remained common, though, for Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be distinguished, and as late as the 1890s there were still examples of the old-style Father Christmas appearing without any of the new American features.


title: Father Christmas

text: The blurring of public roles occurred quite rapidly. In an 1854 newspaper description of the public Boxing Day festivities in Luton, Bedfordshire, a gift-giving Father Christmas/Santa Claus figure was already being described as 'familiar': "On the right-hand side was Father Christmas's bower, formed of evergreens, and in front was the proverbial Yule log, glistening in the snow ... He wore a great furry white coat and cap, and a long white beard and hair spoke to his hoar antiquity. Behind his bower he had a large selection of fancy articles which formed the gifts he distributed to holders of prize tickets from time to time during the day ... Father Christmas bore in his hand a small Christmas tree laden with bright little gifts and bon-bons, and altogether he looked like the familiar Santa Claus or Father Christmas of the picture book." Discussing the shops of Regent Street in London, another writer noted in December of that year, "you may fancy yourself in the abode of Father Christmas or St. Nicholas himself."


title: Father Christmas

text: During the 1860s and 70s Father Christmas became a popular subject on Christmas cards, where he was shown in many different costumes. Sometimes he gave presents and sometimes received them.


title: Father Christmas

text: An illustrated article of 1866 explained the concept of "The Cave of Mystery". In an imagined children's party this took the form of a recess in the library which evoked "dim visions of the cave of Aladdin" and was "well filled ... with all that delights the eye, pleases the ear, or tickles the fancy of children". The young guests "tremblingly await the decision of the improvised Father Christmas, with his flowing grey beard, long robe, and slender staff".


title: Father Christmas

text: From the 1870s onwards, Christmas shopping had begun to evolve as a separate seasonal activity, and by the late 19th century it had become an important part of the English Christmas. The purchasing of toys, especially from the new department stores, became strongly associated with the season. The first retail Christmas Grotto was set up in JR Robert's store in Stratford, London in December 1888, and shopping arenas for children—often called 'Christmas Bazaars'—spread rapidly during the 1890s and 1900s, helping to assimilate Father Christmas/Santa Claus into society.


title: Father Christmas

text: Sometimes the two characters continued to be presented as separate, as in a procession at the Olympia Exhibition of 1888 in which both Father Christmas and Santa Claus took part, with Little Red Riding Hood and other children's characters in between. At other times the characters were conflated: in 1885 Mr Williamson's London Bazaar in Sunderland was reported to be a "Temple of juvenile delectation and delight. In the well-lighted window is a representation of Father Christmas, with the printed intimation that 'Santa Claus is arranging within.'"


title: Father Christmas

text: Even after the appearance of the store grotto, it was still not firmly established who should hand out gifts at parties. A writer in the "Illustrated London News" of December 1888 suggested that a Sibyl should dispense gifts from a 'snow cave', but a little over a year later she had changed her recommendation to a gypsy in a 'magic cave'. Alternatively, the hostess could "have Father Christmas arrive, towards the end of the evening, with a sack of toys on his back. He must have a white head and a long white beard, of course. Wig and beard can be cheaply hired from a theatrical costumier, or may be improvised from tow in case of need. He should wear a greatcoat down to his heels, liberally sprinkled with flour as though he had just come from that land of ice where Father Christmas is supposed to reside."


title: Father Christmas

text: The nocturnal visitor aspect of the American myth took much longer to become naturalised. From the 1840s it had been accepted readily enough that presents were left for children by unseen hands overnight on Christmas Eve, but the receptacle was a matter of debate, as was the nature of the visitor. Dutch tradition had St Nicholas leaving presents in shoes laid out on 5 December, while in France shoes were filled by Père Noël. The older shoe custom and the newer American stocking custom trickled only slowly into Britain, with writers and illustrators remaining uncertain for many years. Although the stocking eventually triumphed, the shoe custom had still not been forgotten by 1901 when an illustration entitled "Did you see Santa Claus, Mother?" was accompanied by the verse "Her Christmas dreams / Have all come true; / Stocking o'erflows / and likewise shoe."


title: Father Christmas

text: Before Santa Claus and the stocking became ubiquitous, one English tradition had been for fairies to visit on Christmas Eve to leave gifts in shoes set out in front of the fireplace.


title: Father Christmas

text: Aspects of the American Santa Claus myth were sometimes adopted in isolation and applied to Father Christmas. In a short fantasy piece, the editor of the "Cheltenham Chronicle" in 1867 dreamt of being seized by the collar by Father Christmas, "rising up like a Geni of the Arabian Nights ... and moving rapidly through the "aether"". Hovering over the roof of a house, Father Christmas cries 'Open Sesame' to have the roof roll back to disclose the scene within.


title: Father Christmas

text: It was not until the 1870s that the tradition of a nocturnal Santa Claus began to be adopted by ordinary people. The poem "The Baby's Stocking", which was syndicated to local newspapers in 1871, took it for granted that readers would be familiar with the custom, and would understand the joke that the stocking might be missed as "Santa Claus wouldn't be looking for anything half so small." On the other hand, when "The Preston Guardian" published its poem "Santa Claus and the Children" in 1877 it felt the need to include a long preface explaining exactly who Santa Claus was.


title: Father Christmas

text: Folklorists and antiquarians were not, it seems, familiar with the new local customs and Ronald Hutton notes that in 1879 the newly formed Folk-Lore Society, ignorant of American practices, was still "excitedly trying to discover the source of the new belief".


title: Father Christmas

text: In January 1879 the antiquarian Edwin Lees wrote to "Notes and Queries" seeking information about an observance he had been told about by 'a country person': "On Christmas Eve, when the inmates of a house in the country retire to bed, all those desirous of a present place a stocking outside the door of their bedroom, with the expectation that some mythical being called Santiclaus will fill the stocking or place something within it before the morning. This is of course well known, and the master of the house does in reality place a Christmas gift secretly in each stocking; but the giggling girls in the morning, when bringing down their presents, affect to say that Santiclaus visited and filled the stockings in the night. From what region of the earth or air this benevolent Santiclaus takes flight I have not been able to ascertain ..." Lees received several responses, linking 'Santiclaus' with the continental traditions of St Nicholas and 'Petit Jesus' (Christkind), but no-one mentioned Father Christmas and no-one was correctly able to identify the American source.


title: Father Christmas

text: By the 1880s the American myth had become firmly established in the popular English imagination, the nocturnal visitor sometimes being known as Santa Claus and sometimes as Father Christmas (often complete with a hooded robe). An 1881 poem imagined a child awaiting a visit from Santa Claus and asking "Will he come like Father Christmas, / Robed in green and beard all white? / Will he come amid the darkness? / Will he come at all tonight?" The French writer Max O'Rell, who evidently thought the custom was established in the England of 1883, explained that Father Christmas ""descend par la cheminée, pour remplir de bonbons et de joux les bas que les enfants ont suspendus au pied du lit."" [comes down the chimney, to fill with sweets and games the stockings that the children have hung from the foot of the bed]. And in her poem "Agnes: A Fairy Tale" (1891), Lilian M Bennett treats the two names as interchangeable: "Old Santa Claus is exceedingly kind, / but he won't come to Wide-awakes, you will find... / Father Christmas won't come if he can hear / You're awake. So to bed my bairnies dear." The commercial availability from 1895 of Tom Smith & Co's "Santa Claus Surprise Stockings" indicates how deeply the American myth had penetrated English society by the end of the century.


title: Father Christmas

text: Representations of the developing character at this period were sometimes labelled 'Santa Claus' and sometimes 'Father Christmas', with a tendency for the latter still to allude to old-style associations with charity and with food and drink, as in several of these "Punch" illustrations:


title: Father Christmas

text: Any residual distinctions between Father Christmas and Santa Claus largely faded away in the early years of the new century, and it was reported in 1915, "The majority of children to-day ... do not know of any difference between our old Father Christmas and the comparatively new Santa Claus, as, by both wearing the same garb, they have effected a happy compromise."


title: Father Christmas

text: It took many years for authors and illustrators to agree that Father Christmas's costume should be portrayed as red—although that was always the most common colour—and he could sometimes be found in a gown of brown, green, blue or white. Mass media approval of the red costume came following a Coca-Cola advertising campaign that was launched in 1931.


title: Father Christmas

text: Father Christmas's common form for much of the 20th century was described by his entry in the "Oxford English Dictionary". He is "the personification of Christmas as a benevolent old man with a flowing white beard, wearing a red sleeved gown and hood trimmed with white fur, and carrying a sack of Christmas presents". One of the OED's sources is a 1919 cartoon in "Punch", reproduced here. The caption reads:


title: Father Christmas

text: In 1951 an editorial in "The Times" opined that while most adults may be under the impression that [the English] Father Christmas is home-bred, and is "a good insular John Bull old gentleman", many children, "led away ... by the false romanticism of sledges and reindeer", post letters to Norway addressed simply to Father Christmas or, "giving him a foreign veneer, Santa Claus".


title: Father Christmas

text: Differences between the English and US representations were discussed in "The Illustrated London News" of 1985. The classic illustration by the US artist Thomas Nast was held to be "the authorised version of how Santa Claus should look—in America, that is." In Britain, people were said to stick to the older Father Christmas, with a long robe, large concealing beard, and boots similar to Wellingtons.


title: Father Christmas

text: Father Christmas appeared in many 20th century English-language works of fiction, including J. R. R. Tolkien's "Father Christmas Letters", a series of private letters to his children written between 1920 and 1942 and first published in 1976. Other 20th century publications include C. S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (1950), Raymond Briggs's "Father Christmas" (1973) and its sequel "Father Christmas Goes on Holiday" (1975). The character was also celebrated in popular songs, including "I Believe in Father Christmas" by Greg Lake (1974) and "Father Christmas" by The Kinks (1977).


title: Father Christmas

text: In 1991, Raymond Briggs's two books were adapted as an animated short film, "Father Christmas", starring Mel Smith as the voice of the title character.


title: Father Christmas

text: Modern dictionaries consider the terms Father Christmas and Santa Claus to be synonymous. The respective characters are now to all intents and purposes indistinguishable, although some people are still said to prefer the term 'Father Christmas' over 'Santa', nearly 150 years after Santa's arrival in England. According to "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable" (19th edn, 2012), Father Christmas is considered to be "[a] British rather than a US name for Santa Claus, associating him specifically with Christmas. The name carries a somewhat socially superior cachet and is thus preferred by certain advertisers."


title: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959 film)

text: Journey to the Center of the Earth (also called Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth) is a 1959 American science fiction adventure film in color by De Luxe, distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film, produced by Charles Brackett and directed by Henry Levin, stars James Mason, Pat Boone, and Arlene Dahl. Bernard Herrmann wrote the film score, and the film's storyline was adapted by Charles Brackett from the 1864 novel of the same name by Jules Verne.


text: In 1880 Edinburgh, Professor Sir Oliver Lindenbrook, a geologist at the University of Edinburgh, is given a piece of volcanic rock by his admiring student, Alec McEwan. Finding the rock unusually heavy, Lindenbrook discovers a plumb bob inside bearing a cryptic inscription. Lindenbrook and Alec discover that it was left by a scientist named Arne Saknussemm, who, almost 300 years earlier, had found a passage to the center of the Earth by descending into the volcano Snæfellsjökull, in western Iceland. After translating the message, Lindenbrook immediately sets off with Alec to follow in the Icelandic pioneer's footsteps.


text: Professor Göteborg, upon receiving correspondence from Lindenbrook regarding the message, attempts to reach the Earth's center first. Lindenbrook and McEwan chase him to Iceland. There, Göteborg and his assistant kidnap and imprison them in a cellar. They are freed by local Hans Bjelke and his pet duck Gertrud. They later find Göteborg dead in his hotel room. Lindenbrook finds potassium cyanide crystals in Göteborg's goatee and concludes that he was murdered.


text: Göteborg's widow, Carla, who initially believed Lindenbrook was trying to capitalize on her deceased husband's work, learns the truth. She provides the equipment and supplies that her husband had accumulated, including much sought after Ruhmkorff lamps, but only on the condition that she accompanies them to protect her husband's reputation. Lindenbrook grudgingly agrees. Hans and Gertrud also join the new expedition.


text: On a specific date, they mark the sunrise's exact location on Snæfellsjökull and descend into the Earth from there, following markings left by Saknussemm. However, they are not alone. Göteborg's murderer, Count Saknussemm, believes that, as Saknussemm's descendant, only he has the right to be there. He and his manservant trail the group secretly. When Alec becomes separated from the others, he comes upon Saknussemm. When Alec refuses to take the place of Saknussemm's servant, who has died from overexertion, Saknussemm shoots Alec in the arm. Lindenbrook locates them through the gunshot's echoes and, after a quick trial for murder, sentences Saknussemm to death. No one is willing to execute him, however, so they reluctantly take him along.


text: The explorers eventually come upon a subterranean ocean. They construct a raft to cross it, but not before narrowly escaping a family of "dimetrodons". Their raft begins circling in a large mid-ocean whirlpool. The professor deduces that this must be the center of the Earth: The magnetic forces of north and south meet there and are powerful enough to snatch away even the gold in their rings and tooth fillings. Now completely exhausted, they reach the opposite shore.


text: While the others are asleep, a hungry Saknussemm catches and eats Gertrud. When Hans finds out, he rushes at the count. Reeling back, Saknussemm inadvertently loosens a column of large stones and is buried beneath them, killing him. Right behind the collapse, the group comes upon the ruins of the sunken city of Atlantis. They also find the skeleton of Arne Saknussemm, whose right hand points toward a volcanic chimney. While a strong updraft suggests it leads directly to the surface, a huge rock partially blocks the way. Lindenbrook decides to blow up the obstruction with gunpowder left by Saknussemm, and they take shelter in a large sacrificial altar bowl. A giant lizard attacks, but is buried under molten lava released by the explosion. The bowl floats toward the passage and is driven upward at great speed by a lava plume, finally reaching the surface and ejecting the explorers.


text: When they return to Edinburgh, they are hailed as heroes. Lindenbrook turns down the honors due to the loss of their documented evidence, but encourages the next generations to follow in their footsteps. Alec marries Lindenbrook's niece Jenny, and Lindenbrook and Carla kiss, a pledge of their coming wedding.


text: The film was a co-production between 20th Century-Fox and Joseph M. Schenck, who had been instrumental in helping establish Fox in 1935. The film was produced by Charles Brackett who said:


text: Our picture describes action and events, with not the slightest shadow of Freud. The serious thing about Jules Verne is that all he does is tell a story in exciting episodes, but his stories have always pushed man a little closer towards the unknown. What we've tried to do is retell his story in the best way of all - in the Verne vernacular.


text: Brackett called the original story "a delightful book, written for young people. We simply couldn't have any solemnity about it. I wanted very much to do it at this time. I'm tired of all these films based on thoughts at the back of sick minds."


text: I had written a lot of science fiction for magazines, and Charles Brackett knew about that. They also knew that I had written magazine articles on Jules Verne. I had studied Jules Verne, and always wanted to write his biography, but I never got around to doing it. When they bought the Jules Verne novel from his estate and assigned me, I was delighted. The master's work, though a beautiful basic idea, went in a thousand directions and never achieved a real constructive "roundness". With the exception of the basic idea, there is very little of the novel left in the film. I invented a lot of new characters—the Pat Boone part, the part of the professor's wife played by Arlene Dahl, the [part of the] villain—and the fact that it all played in Scotland.


text: Pat Boone was the first star announced. He said he was reluctant to make the film because it was science fiction, even after Fox promised to add some songs. It was only when they offered him 15% of the profits that he agreed at the urging of his management. He said, "Later on, I was very glad I did it, because it was fun to do, it had some good music and it became a very successful film".


text: It remains a mystery why Boone never appeared in another fantasy/sci-fi adventure in his entire career. Boone was believable in them, and he could easily sing a song over the credits if he wanted. He wouldn’t have to worry about kissing any of his co-stars or “morality” issues. And it wasn’t as though Fox weren’t making them. When he was under contract they turned out "The Lost World" (1960), "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961) and "Five Weeks in a Balloon" (1962). The last two even featured pop stars Frankie Avalon and Fabian respectively, but no Boone. Was he too expensive? Did the dates not work out? Did he insist on playing the lead? Whatever the reason it was a great shame. For me, this is the biggest misstep Boone made in his film career.


text: That was absolutely the most beautiful idea, because Clifton Webb had a certain tongue-in-cheek style, suited to playing a professor with crazy notions, which could be paired with Pat Boone as his favorite disciple. Every week Clifton visited Brackett's office, where we described scenes to him and he became very excited at the prospect of playing that kind of part. Maybe two or three weeks before we actually began to shoot, Clifton Webb went to the hospital for a checkup, and they never let him out. He had to undergo major surgery. Unless my memory fails me completely, it was a double hernia, and he was, as you can imagine, a very sensitive man, very touchy about sickness. He called Zanuck himself on his private line, and said he could not play the part because it was such a physical part.


text: Webb was replaced at the last minute by James Mason, who had previously appeared as Captain Nemo in Disney's earlier adaptation of Jules Verne's novel, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954). Reisch:


text: I think it was [longtime head of Twentieth Century-Fox casting] Billy Gordon or Lew Schreiber [Twentieth Century-Fox production executive] who suggested James Mason. James Mason was, of course, British, with a beautiful voice, and he liked the idea [of the part]. He felt it was his duty as Clifton's colleague to take over. From there on it was clear sailing, except that Pat Boone had about three or four songs, if not more, and I think all of them died in the end, with the exception of one or two. The moment that Zanuck saw [their effect on] the action, those songs just fell by the wayside.


text: Some of the underground sequences for "Journey to the Center of the Earth" were filmed at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Other shooting locations included Amboy Crater and Sequit Point, California, as well as Edinburgh, Scotland. Principal photography took place from late June to mid-September 1959.


text: Originally, "Life" magazine editor and science writer Lincoln Barnett was to write the screenplay and later acted as one of the technical advisers on the film.


text: The giant "Dimetrodon" depicted at the center of the Earth action sequence were actually rhinoceros iguanas with large, glued-on make-up appliances added to their backs. The giant chameleon seen later in the ruins of Atlantis scene was actually a painted Tegu lizard.


text: At the time of release, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" was a financial success, grossing $10,000,000 at the box office (well over its $3.44 million budget).


text: Film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes assigns a rating of 86% based on 29 critics, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critical consensus describes "Journey to the Center of the Earth" as "a silly but fun movie with everything you'd want from a sci-fi blockbuster – heroic characters, menacing villains, monsters, big sets and special effects".


text: Upon the film's release, "New York Times" film critic Bosley Crowther said "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is "really not very striking make-believe, when all is said and done. The earth's interior is somewhat on the order of an elaborate amusement-park tunnel of love. And the attitudes of the people, toward each other and toward another curious man who happens to be exploring down there at the same time, are conventional and just a bit dull".


text: Ian Nathan, writing a retrospective review for "Empire", gave the film four stars, stating that "it has dated a fair bit, but it's a film that takes its far-fetchedness seriously, and delivers a thrilling adventure untrammelled by cheese, melodrama or ludicrous tribes of extras, shabbily dressed bird-beings or lizard men", ultimately concluding that the film is "still captivating despite the obviously dated effects".


text: "Journey to the Center of the Earth" won a second place Golden Laurel award for Top Action Drama in 1960.


text: The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Lyle R. Wheeler, Franz Bachelin, Herman A. Blumenthal, Walter M. Scott, Joseph Kish), for Best Effects, Special Effects, and for Best Sound (Carlton W. Faulkner).


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Richard Nelson Williamson (born 8 March 1940) is a British independent Traditionalist Catholic bishop who opposes the changes in the church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. He was originally a member of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). He was subsequently excommunicated; this was lifted in 2009. Williamson was convicted in German courts of denying the Holocaust and incitement related to those views. He incurred a "latae sententiae" excommunication in 2015 for consecrating a bishop without the pope's approval. Due to other actions, Williamson was expelled from the SSPX in 2012.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In 1988, Williamson was one of four SSPX priests who were illicitly consecrated as bishops by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for which Pope John Paul II declared had incurred "ipso facto" automatic excommunication. The validity of the excommunication has always been denied by the SSPX, who, citing canon law, argue that the consecrations were permissible due to a crisis in the Catholic Church. The excommunications, including that of Williamson, were lifted on 21 January 2009 but the suspension of the bishops from ministry within the Catholic Church remained in force. Certain exceptions were granted by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis as a way to foster dialogue and goodwill and to allow the priests to exercise limited ministry despite their canonically irregular situation.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Immediately afterward, Swedish television broadcast an interview recorded earlier at the SSPX's seminary in Zaitzkofen, Bavaria. During the interview, Williamson expressed his belief that no more than 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust and that Nazi Germany did not use gas chambers. Based upon these statements, he was immediately charged with and convicted of Holocaust denial by a German court. The Holy See declared that Pope Benedict had been unaware of Williamson's views when he lifted the excommunication of the four bishops. He said that Williamson would remain suspended from his episcopal functions until he unequivocally and publicly distanced himself from that stated position on the Holocaust. In 2010, Williamson was convicted of incitement in a German court in relation to those views; the conviction was later vacated on appeal. He was convicted again of this charge in a retrial in early 2013. Williamson appealed again, but his appeal was rejected.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: After a number of incidents, including calling for the resignation of Bernard Fellay as the Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, refusal to stop publishing his weekly email and an unauthorised visitation to Brazil, Williamson was expelled from the Society in 2012. After leaving the Society, Williamson consecrated Jean-Michel Faure, Tomás de Aquino Ferreira da Costa, and as bishops in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Because of these consecrations, he was excommunicated "latae sententiae" from the Catholic Church again in 2015.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson was born in Buckinghamshire, England, the middle son of a Marks & Spencer buyer and his wealthy American wife. Williamson attended Winchester College before going on to study at Clare College, Cambridge, where he received a degree in English literature. Upon graduating, he taught at a college in Ghana for a brief period.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson, originally an Anglican, was received into the Catholic Church in 1971. After a few months as a postulant at the Brompton Oratory, he left. He became a member of the Society of Saint Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic faction founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in protest against what Lefebvre saw as the liberalism of the Second Vatican Council. Williamson entered the International Seminary of Saint Pius X at Écône, Switzerland, and in 1976 he was ordained a priest by Lefebvre.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson subsequently moved to the United States, where he served as the rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Ridgefield, Connecticut from 1983, and continued in the position when the seminary moved to Winona, Minnesota in 1988.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson is fluent in English, French, German and Spanish. Currently Williamson writes comments on St. Marcel Initiative, part of BRN ASSOCIATES INC, non-profit corporation registered in Virginia with a mailing address in St. Louis.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In June 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre announced his intention to consecrate Williamson and three other priests (Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, and Alfonso de Galarreta) as bishops. Lefebvre did not have a pontifical mandate for these consecrations (i.e. permission from the pope), normally required by Canon 1382 of the Code of Canon Law. On 17 June 1988 Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops sent the four priests a formal canonical warning that they would automatically incur the penalty of excommunication if they were to be consecrated by Lefebvre without papal permission.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On 30 June 1988 Williamson and the three other priests were consecrated bishop by Archbishop Lefebvre and Antônio de Castro Mayer. On 1 July 1988 Cardinal Gantin issued a declaration stating that Lefebvre, de Castro Mayer, Williamson, and the three other newly ordained bishops "have incurred "ipso facto" the excommunication "latae sententiae" reserved to the Apostolic See".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On 2 July 1988, Pope John Paul II issued the "motu proprio" "Ecclesia Dei", in which he reaffirmed the excommunication, and described the consecration as an act of "disobedience to the Roman pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the Church", and that "such disobedience – which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy — constitutes a schismatic act".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, head of the commission responsible for implementing "Ecclesia Dei", has said this resulted in a "situation of separation, even if it was not a formal schism."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: The SSPX denied the validity of the excommunications, saying that the consecrations were necessary due to a moral and theological crisis in the Catholic Church, making them permissible under canon law.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: His excommunication, along with that of Archbishop Lefebvre and the other bishops consecrated the Écône consecrations were lifted in 2009 by Benedict XVI.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: After his episcopal consecration Williamson remained rector of St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, Minnesota. He performed various episcopal functions, including confirmations and ordinations. In 1991, he assisted in the consecration of Licínio Rangel as bishop for the Priestly Society of St. John Mary Vianney after the death of its founder, Antônio de Castro Mayer. In 2006, he ordained two priests and seven deacons in Warsaw, Poland for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Priestly Society of Saint Josaphat ().


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In 2003 Williamson was appointed rector of the Seminary of Our Lady Co-Redemptrix in La Reja, Argentina.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In common with other traditionalists, Williamson opposes the changes in the Catholic Church brought about by the Second Vatican Council. He sees such changes as being unacceptably liberal and modernistic, and as being destructive to the Church. Among the changes he opposes are the Church's increased openness to other Christian denominations and other religions, and changes in the forms of Catholic worship such as the general replacement of the Tridentine Mass with the Mass of Paul VI. Williamson has criticised Pope John Paul II, to whom he attributed a "weak grasp of Catholicism". Williamson holds that the SSPX is not schismatic, but rather is composed of true Catholics who are keeping the "complete Roman Catholic apostolic faith".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson is viewed as being located towards the hardline end of the traditionalist spectrum, though he does not go quite so far as to espouse sedevacantism. In the past, he opposed compromise between the SSPX and the Church leadership in Rome, accusing the latter of deceit and of being under "the power of Satan". He has been reported as viewing reconciliation between the SSPX and the Holy See as being impossible, and he has noted that some SSPX members might refuse to follow the Society in such a direction even if an agreement were reached.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson holds strong views regarding gender roles. He opposes women wearing trousers or shorts, women attending college or university, and women having careers. He has urged greater "manliness" in men.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Regarding parenting style, he denounced the film "The Sound of Music" as "soul-rotting slush" and says that, by putting "friendliness and fun in the place of authority and rules, it invites disorder between parents and children."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson supports conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theory, denying that the September 11 attacks were foreign terrorist attacks and claiming they were instead staged by the U.S. government. He has also said that the 7 July 2005 London bombings were an "inside job" and propagated rumours about the likelihood of a nuclear attack on the London Olympics in 2012.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: He says that Jews and Freemasons have contributed to the "changes and corruption" in the Catholic Church. He has also stated that Jews aim at world dominion and believes "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to be authentic. Williamson has denied that he is promoting hatred, identifying the contemporary enemies of the faith as "Jews, Communists and Freemasons". He argues that "Anti-Semitism means many things today, for instance, when one criticizes the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip. The Church has always understood the definition of anti-Semitism to be the rejection of Jews because of their Jewish roots. This is condemned by the Church."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Since the late 1980s, Williamson has been accused of Holocaust denial. Citing the pseudoscientific Leuchter report, Williamson has denied that millions of Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps and the existence of Nazi gas chambers and praised Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. During an interview on Swedish television recorded in November 2008, he stated: "I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler", and "I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On the occasion of the death of Robert Faurisson he summarised: "[T]he people who hold world-wide power today over politics and the media are people who want the godless New World Order, and" "they have fabricated a hugely false version of World War Two history to go with a complete fabricated religion to replace Christianity."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Wishing to heal the rift with the SSPX, Pope Benedict XVI lifted the declared automatic excommunications of the four bishops Marcel Lefebvre had consecrated, as they had requested. The decree was signed on 21 January 2009, the same day that the interview on Swedish television was broadcast. The decision stirred widespread outrage, particularly in Germany, where the interview was conducted and where Holocaust denial is illegal and punishable by imprisonment of up to five years. Reaction from the State of Israel and much of the worldwide Jewish community was strongly negative, and Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote to Cardinal Walter Kasper in order to express his opposition to any ecclesiastic re-integration of Williamson. In January 2009, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel suspended contacts with the Vatican. The Chief Rabbi of Haifa told "The Jerusalem Post" that he expected Williamson to retract publicly his statements before any dialogue could resume.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Pope Benedict XVI stated that he deplored all forms of antisemitism and that all Catholics must do the same. The Pope expressed his "unquestionable solidarity" with the Jewish people, and stated his hope that "the memory of the Shoah will induce humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of hate when it conquers the heart of man", and condemned the denial of the Holocaust. Vatican officials stated that they had not been aware of Williamson's views prior to the lifting of the excommunication; as a result, in a July 2009 Vatican reorganisation, the Pope tightened control and supervision over reconciliation efforts with SSPX.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson sent the Pope a letter expressing his regret about the problems that he had caused, but did not retract his statements. On 4 February 2009 the Vatican Secretariat of State issued a note stating that Williamson would have to distance himself unequivocally and publicly from the opinions that he had expressed before he would be permitted to act as a bishop within the Church. Williamson responded that he would do so only after looking at the historical evidence for himself.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On 26 February, he formally apologised for the offence that had been caused by his comments, but did not indicate that he had changed his views. The Vatican rejected his apology, stating that he needed to "unequivocally and publicly" withdraw his comments. Some Jewish groups have expressed disappointment at the ambiguity of his apology, because he failed to address the consensus about the Holocaust. He subsequently repeated the denial to followers, stating that "The fact is that the 6 million people who were supposedly gassed represent a huge lie."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Fellay of the SSPX initially denied responsibility, stating that Williamson's statements were his alone and that the affair did not concern the SSPX as a whole. However, he subsequently forbade Williamson from speaking out publicly about historical or political matters, and asked Pope Benedict for forgiveness for the damage done by Williamson's statements. In a subsequent interview he likened Williamson to uranium, asserting that "It's dangerous when you have it," but you can't "simply leave it by the side of the road."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: The Vatican declared that "in order to be admitted to episcopal functions within the Church, (Williamson) will have to take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah, which the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) was not aware of when the excommunication was lifted."


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In Argentina, Williamson became a cult figure amongst the far-right seminarians, "The Guardian" reports.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Williamson was removed as the head of the seminary in La Reja, Argentina and Fellay stated that if Williamson again denied the Holocaust, he would be excluded from the society.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In February 2009, the government of Argentina asked Williamson to leave the country over irregularities with his visa, and stated that his recent statements about Jews "profoundly offend Argentinian society, the Jewish people and all of humanity". On 24 February 2009, Williamson flew from Argentina to London, where he was met by Michele Renouf, a former model known for her antisemitic views, with whom he had been put in touch by holocaust denier David Irving.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On 4 February 2009, German prosecutors announced the launch of a criminal investigation into the statements. In October 2009, a German court, using an "order of punishment" fined Williamson €12,000 after finding him guilty of Holocaust denial. Williamson denied the charges and appealed, paving the way for a full hearing that Williamson need not attend. He did not attend the trial, on orders from his society, on charges of inciting racial hatred in Regensburg, Germany on 16 April 2010, and was found guilty. The court reduced the fine to . The fine was appealed by lawyers from both sides; the lawyer Williamson hired was the former leader of the Wiking-Jugend, an outlawed Neo-Nazi group. The Society of St. Pius X ordered Williamson to find a new lawyer under threat of expulsion. His appeal was held on 11 July 2011. At appeal the lower court's decision was upheld but the fine was reduced to €6,500, reportedly due to Williamson's financial circumstances. On 22 February 2012 the higher court dismissed this conviction, finding that the initial charges against Williamson had been inadequately drawn, having failed to specify the nature of his offence, or at what point his filmed comments came under German jurisdiction, or in what sense he could be held liable for failing to prevent their publication in Germany. On 16 January 2013, he was prosecuted and condemned again, but this time with a much reduced fine of €1,600, because of his "unemployed state". He refused to pay the fine and appealed again, but his appeal was dismissed. On 31 January 2019 the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Williams' attempt to overturn a conviction for Holocaust denial on the grounds of free speech.


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In August 2012, Williamson administered the sacrament of confirmation to about 100 laypeople at the Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Cross in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, during an unauthorised visit to the State of Rio de Janeiro. The society's South American district superior, , protested against his action on the SSPX website, saying that it was "a serious act against the virtue of obedience." In early October 2012, the leadership of the SSPX gave Williamson a deadline to declare his submission, instead of which he published an "open letter" asking for the resignation of the Superior General. On 4 October 2012, the Society expelled Williamson in a "painful decision" citing the failures "to show respect and obedience deserved by his legitimate superiors".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: In the first issue of his weekly blog after his expulsion, Williamson wrote: "Hang tight, everybody. We are in for one 'helluva' ride. Let's just make that a ride to Heaven!" And later he wrote: "For myself, I shall attempt to follow [God's] Providence in the ordaining of priests – or in the consecrating of bishops. God's will be done." He called for the establishment of a loose network of what he called "Catholic Resistance" to any proposal by the SSPX to drop its opposition to Rome. An initiative was set up by Williamson under the title "The St. Marcel Initiative".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: On 19 March 2015, Williamson ordained Frenchman Jean-Michel Faure, a former member of the SSPX, as a bishop in a ceremony in Nova Friburgo, Brazil. Faure had, like Williamson, opposed reconciliation discussions between the SSPX and the Catholic Church. As this was done without papal mandate, both Faure and Williamson incurred a "latae sententiae" excommunication. The SSPX condemned the consecration as "not at all comparable to the consecrations of 1988" and as proof that Williamson and Faure "no longer recognize the Roman authorities, except in a purely rhetorical manner".


title: Richard Williamson (bishop)

text: Exactly one year later, Williamson consecrated Tomás de Aquino Ferreira da Costa as a bishop in Brazil. This consecration also took place without papal approval. The following year, it was announced that Williamson intended to consecrate a third bishop, Mexican-American prelate Gerardo Zendejas, on 11 May 2017. The consecration was held at St. Athanasius Church in Vienna, Virginia.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Attempts at producing a state of general anesthesia can be traced throughout recorded history in the writings of the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The Renaissance saw significant advances in anatomy and surgical technique. However, despite all this progress, surgery remained a treatment of last resort. Largely because of the associated pain, many patients with surgical disorders chose certain death rather than undergo surgery. Although there has been a great deal of debate as to who deserves the most credit for the discovery of general anesthesia, it is generally agreed that certain scientific discoveries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were critical to the eventual introduction and development of modern anesthetic techniques.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Two major advances occurred in the late 19th century, which together allowed the transition to modern surgery. An appreciation of the germ theory of disease led rapidly to the development and application of antiseptic techniques in surgery. Antisepsis, which soon gave way to asepsis, reduced the overall morbidity and mortality of surgery to a far more acceptable rate than in previous eras. Concurrent with these developments were the significant advances in pharmacology and physiology which led to the development of general anesthesia and the control of pain.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: In the 20th century, the safety and efficacy of general anesthesia was improved by the routine use of tracheal intubation and other advanced airway management techniques. Significant advances in monitoring and new anesthetic agents with improved pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic characteristics also contributed to this trend. Standardized training programs for anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists emerged during this period. The increased application of economic and business administration principles to health care in the late 20th and early 21st centuries led to the introduction of management practices such as transfer pricing to improve the efficiency of anesthetists.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The word "anesthesia", coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) in 1846 from the Greek , "an-", "without"; and , "aisthēsis", "sensation", refers to the inhibition of sensation.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The first attempts at general anesthesia were probably herbal remedies administered in prehistory. Alcohol is the oldest known sedative; it was used in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The Sumerians are said to have cultivated and harvested the opium poppy ("Papaver somniferum") in lower Mesopotamia as early as 3400 BC, though this has been disputed. The most ancient testimony concerning the opium poppy found to date was inscribed in cuneiform script on a small white clay tablet at the end of the third millennium BC. This tablet was discovered in 1954 during excavations at Nippur, and is currently kept at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Deciphered by Samuel Noah Kramer and Martin Leve, it is considered to be the most ancient pharmacopoeia in existence. Some Sumerian tablets of this era have an ideogram inscribed upon them, "hul gil", which translates to "plant of joy", believed by some authors to refer to opium. The term "gil" is still used for opium in certain parts of the world. The Sumerian goddess Nidaba is often depicted with poppies growing out of her shoulders. About 2225 BC, the Sumerian territory became a part of the Babylonian empire. Knowledge and use of the opium poppy and its euphoric effects thus passed to the Babylonians, who expanded their empire eastwards to Persia and westwards to Egypt, thereby extending its range to these civilizations. British archaeologist and cuneiformist Reginald Campbell Thompson writes that opium was known to the Assyrians in the 7th century BC. The term "Arat Pa Pa" occurs in the "Assyrian Herbal", a collection of inscribed Assyrian tablets dated to c. 650 BC. According to Thompson, this term is the Assyrian name for the juice of the poppy and it may be the etymological origin of the Latin ""papaver"".


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The ancient Egyptians had some surgical instruments, as well as crude analgesics and sedatives, including possibly an extract prepared from the mandrake fruit. The use of preparations similar to opium in surgery is recorded in the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical papyrus written in the Eighteenth dynasty. However, it is questionable whether opium itself was known in ancient Egypt. The Greek gods Hypnos (Sleep), Nyx (Night), and Thanatos (Death) were often depicted holding poppies.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Prior to the introduction of opium to ancient India and China, these civilizations pioneered the use of cannabis incense and aconitum. c. 400 BC, the Sushruta Samhita (a text from the Indian subcontinent on ayurvedic medicine and surgery) advocates the use of wine with incense of cannabis for anesthesia. By the 8th century AD, Arab traders had brought opium to India and China.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Bian Que (Chinese: 扁鵲, Wade–Giles: "Pien Ch'iao", ) was a legendary Chinese internist and surgeon who reportedly used general anesthesia for surgical procedures. It is recorded in the "Book of Master Han Fei" (), the "Records of the Grand Historian" (), and the "Book of Master Lie" () that Bian Que gave two men, named "Lu" and "Chao", a toxic drink which rendered them unconscious for three days, during which time he performed a gastrostomy upon them.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Hua Tuo (Chinese:華佗， ) was a Chinese surgeon of the 2nd century AD. According to the "Records of Three Kingdoms" () and the "Book of the Later Han" (), Hua Tuo performed surgery under general anesthesia using a formula he had developed by mixing wine with a mixture of herbal extracts he called "mafeisan" (麻沸散). Hua Tuo reportedly used mafeisan to perform even major operations such as resection of gangrenous intestines. Before the surgery, he administered an oral anesthetic potion, probably dissolved in wine, in order to induce a state of unconsciousness and partial neuromuscular blockade.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The exact composition of mafeisan, similar to all of Hua Tuo's clinical knowledge, was lost when he burned his manuscripts, just before his death. The composition of the anesthetic powder was not mentioned in either the "Records of Three Kingdoms" or the "Book of the Later Han". Because Confucian teachings regarded the body as sacred and surgery was considered a form of body mutilation, surgery was strongly discouraged in ancient China. Because of this, despite Hua Tuo's reported success with general anesthesia, the practice of surgery in ancient China ended with his death.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The name "mafeisan" combines "ma" (, meaning "cannabis, hemp, numbed or tingling"), "fei" (, meaning "boiling or bubbling"), and "san" (, meaning "to break up or scatter", or "medicine in powder form"). Therefore, the word "mafeisan" probably means something like "cannabis boil powder". Many sinologists and scholars of traditional Chinese medicine have guessed at the composition of Hua Tuo's mafeisan powder, but the exact components still remain unclear. His formula is believed to have contained some combination of:


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Others have suggested the potion may have also contained hashish, bhang, "shang-luh", or opium. Victor H. Mair wrote that "mafei" "appears to be a transcription of some Indo-European word related to "morphine"." Some authors believe that Hua Tuo may have discovered surgical analgesia by acupuncture, and that mafeisan either had nothing to do with or was simply an adjunct to his strategy for anesthesia. Many physicians have attempted to re-create the same formulation based on historical records but none have achieved the same clinical efficacy as Hua Tuo's. In any event, Hua Tuo's formula did not appear to be effective for major operations.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Ferdowsi (940–1020) was a Persian poet who lived in the Abbasid Caliphate. In "Shahnameh", his national epic poem, Ferdowsi described a caesarean section performed on Rudaba. A special wine prepared by a Zoroastrian priest was used as an anesthetic for this operation.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: c. 1020, Ibn Sīnā (980–1037) in "The Canon of Medicine" described the "soporific sponge", a sponge imbued with aromatics and narcotics, which was to be placed under a patient's nose during surgical operations. Opium made its way from Asia Minor to all parts of Europe between the 10th and 13th centuries.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Throughout 1200–1500 AD in England, a potion called dwale was used as an anesthetic. This alcohol-based mixture contained bile, opium, lettuce, bryony, henbane, hemlock and vinegar. Surgeons roused them by rubbing vinegar and salt on their cheekbones. One can find records of dwale in numerous literary sources, including Shakespeare's "Hamlet", and the John Keats poem "Ode to a Nightingale". In the 13th century, we have the first prescription of the "spongia soporifica"—a sponge soaked in the juices of unripe mulberry, flax, mandragora leaves, ivy, lettuce seeds, lapathum, and hemlock with hyoscyamus. After treatment and/or storage, the sponge could be heated and the vapors inhaled with anesthetic effect.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Alchemist Ramon Llull has been credited with discovering diethyl ether in 1275. Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), better known as Paracelsus, discovered the analgesic properties of diethyl ether around 1525. It was first synthesized in 1540 by Valerius Cordus, who noted some of its medicinal properties. He called it "oleum dulce vitrioli", a name that reflects the fact that it is synthesized by distilling a mixture of ethanol and sulfuric acid (known at that time as oil of vitriol). August Sigmund Frobenius gave the name "Spiritus Vini Æthereus" to the substance in 1730.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was an English polymath who discovered nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, ammonia, hydrogen chloride and (along with Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier) oxygen. Beginning in 1775, Priestley published his research in "Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air", a six-volume work. The recent discoveries about these and other gases stimulated a great deal of interest in the European scientific community. Thomas Beddoes (1760–1808) was an English philosopher, physician and teacher of medicine, and like his older colleague Priestley, was also a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. With an eye toward making further advances in this new science as well as offering treatment for diseases previously thought to be untreatable (such as asthma and tuberculosis), Beddoes founded the "Pneumatic Institution" for inhalation gas therapy in 1798 at Dowry Square in Clifton, Bristol. Beddoes employed chemist and physicist Humphry Davy (1778–1829) as superintendent of the institute, and engineer James Watt (1736–1819) to help manufacture the gases. Other members of the Lunar Society such as Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were also actively involved with the institute.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: During the course of his research at the Pneumatic Institution, Davy discovered the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. Davy, who coined the term "laughing gas" for nitrous oxide, published his findings the following year in the now-classic treatise, "Researches, chemical and philosophical–chiefly concerning nitrous oxide or dephlogisticated nitrous air, and its respiration". Davy was not a physician, and he never administered nitrous oxide during a surgical procedure. He was, however, the first to document the analgesic effects of nitrous oxide, as well as its potential benefits in relieving pain during surgery:


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Takamine Tokumei from Shuri, Ryūkyū Kingdom, is reported to have made a general anesthesia in 1689 in the Ryukyus, now known as Okinawa. He passed on his knowledge to the Satsuma doctors in 1690 and to Ryūkyūan doctors in 1714.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Hanaoka Seishū (華岡 青洲, 1760–1835) of Osaka was a Japanese surgeon of the Edo period with a knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine, as well as Western surgical techniques he had learned through "Rangaku" (literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning"). Beginning in about 1785, Hanaoka embarked on a quest to re-create a compound that would have pharmacologic properties similar to Hua Tuo's mafeisan. After years of research and experimentation, he finally developed a formula which he named "tsūsensan" (also known as "mafutsu-san"). Like that of Hua Tuo, this compound was composed of extracts of several different plants, including:


title: History of general anesthesia

text: The active ingredients in tsūsensan are scopolamine, hyoscyamine, atropine, aconitine and angelicotoxin. When consumed in sufficient quantity, tsūsensan produces a state of general anesthesia and skeletal muscle paralysis. Shutei Nakagawa (1773–1850), a close friend of Hanaoka, wrote a small pamphlet titled "Mayaku-ko" ("narcotic powder") in 1796. Although the original manuscript was lost in a fire in 1867, this brochure described the current state of Hanaoka's research on general anesthesia.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: On 13 October 1804, Hanaoka performed a partial mastectomy for breast cancer on a 60-year-old woman named Kan Aiya, using tsūsensan as a general anesthetic. This is generally regarded today as the first reliable documentation of an operation to be performed under general anesthesia. Hanaoka went on to perform many operations using tsūsensan, including resection of malignant tumors, extraction of bladder stones, and extremity amputations. Before his death in 1835, Hanaoka performed more than 150 operations for breast cancer.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Friedrich Sertürner (1783–1841) first isolated morphine from opium in 1804; he named it morphine after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.


title: History of general anesthesia

text: Henry Hill Hickman (1800–1830) experimented with the use of carbon dioxide as an anesthetic in the 1820s. He would make the animal insensible, effectively via almost suffocating it with carbon dioxide, then determine the effects of the gas by amputating one of its limbs. In 1824, Hickman submitted the results of his research to the Royal Society in a short treatise titled "Letter on suspended animation: with the view of ascertaining its probable utility in surgical operations on human subjects". The response was an 1826 article in "The Lancet" titled "Surgical Humbug" that ruthlessly criticised his work. Hickman died four years later at age 30. Though he was unappreciated at the time of his death, his work has since been positively reappraised and he is now recognised as one of the fathers of anesthesia.