Is the "painkiller" part of the anesthetic cocktail really a chemical that prevents the formation of memories? I find this both compelling and frightening: "O

Is the "painkiller" part of the anesthetic cocktail really a chemical that prevents the formation of memories? I find this both compelling and frightening: "Of the thirty-two patients Russell tested, twenty-three squeezed to suggest they could hear, and twenty squeezed again to say they were in pain. Although Russell was supposed to test sixty patients, he was so unnerved by these results that he ended the trial early. It’s possible, he suggests, that the women were conscious and suffering on the operating table. If that’s the case, then general anesthesia might be better described as “general amnesia.”