Anaesthesia is an acute pharmacological experience that has dramatic effect on the patient. This can be observed immediately following drug administration.

In order to practice anaesthesia safely, it is essential to acquire a wide knowledge of basic sciences, general medicine and to capable of acute cardiopulmonary resuscitation, orderly thinking and proper timings of administration of drugs.

This will be untrue to say that modern anaesthetists are only involved in these fields. They have commitments outside the operating theatres also. To enumerate a few, the ITU, pain relief clinics, clinical respiratory physiology, paediatric intensive care and obstetric analgesia.

This basic book is intended to provide medical students and junior anaesthetic staff (who have had no previous experience in anaesthesia) with basic knowledge about general anaesthesia and spinal, epidural analgesia.

Any criticism regarding the development of the book would be welcome.

I would like to thank all those colleagues who helped bring these few chapters in the form of a book.

Mehdi Hassan Mumtaz