Editor’s note: After the September editorial that included reference to anesthetists being out of the room or not monitoring, the following piece from the March, 1957 ASA Newsletter was recalled and is reprinted hem with permission of the author.

To the Editor

Popping Off! (To Air Is Human)

“In recent months I’ve been exposed to a rather tremendous dose of what might be called ‘casual anesthesia.’ You know the kind, I’m sure. Its theme song is titled ‘Once in a While’ (once in a while squeeze the bag, once in a while take a pulse, once in a while stay near the head, etc.), and subtitled ‘But Not Too Often!’ At the risk of rendering myself vulnerable to a fulminating case of ‘Foot-in-Mouth’ disease, I’d like to cite an Aesop’s Fable. .

The Lion, the Mouse and the Fox

A Eon, fatigued by the heat of a summer’s day, fell fast asleep in his den. A Mouse ran over his mane and ears, and woke him from his slumbers. He rose up and shook himself in great wrath, and searched every comer of his den to find the Mouse. A Fox, seeing him, said “A fine Lion you are, to he frightened of a Mouse:’ “‘Tis not the Mouse I fear,” said the Lion; “I resent his familiarity and ill-breeding.”

Little liberates are great offenses. Samuel I. Joseph, M.D. Baltimore, MD