Le Tableau de l'Operation de la Taille

So Pliny listened, as I had done, to Le Tableau de l'Operation de la Taille, played on the viola da gamba, accompanied by these words, narrated in a loud dramatic tone :

The appearance of the operating table.
A shudder on seeing it.
Resolution climbing in.
Climbing out and dismounting.
Grave thoughts.
Knotting the silk restraints for arms and legs.
The incision is made. ( here the music rises in a screech of terrible dissonance )
Introduction of the forceps.
Then the stone is drawn.
You nearly lose your voice.
Blood flows.
The silks are unknotted.
Then you are taken to bed.

By Jove! said Pliny the Elder. That was certainly hair-raising. It surprises me that it should be thought to be a suitable subject for a musical composition.

Me too, I said. I imagine it was quite cutting edge, in 1725. Anyway, fancy having to have gallstones removed without an anaesthetic. I suppose it was even worse in your day.

Oh no, said Pliny airily. We had knowledge of anaesthetics back then. White mandrake, crushed marble and acetum.... We had forceps, scalpels, catheters, speculums, arrow extractors, bone hooks and levers. We had pain killers and sedatives, and germ killers even though we didn't know what germs were.

Really Pliny? I said. Then you were more enlightened than they were in 18th century France.

Yes, he said, but we had not the benefit of the invention of the viola da gamba.

You have now, I said. Let's listen to it again.