[wetha]

> Some people criticized anesthesia as a “needless luxury”; clergymen deplored its use to reduce pain during childbirth as a frustration of the Almighty’s designs.

It’s become fashionable to take potshots at Christianity, justified or otherwise.

From a post on internationalskeptics.com[1]

> British science historian Colin A. Russell, in "The Conflict of Science and Religion" (published in The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia), refers to "the alleged opposition to James Young Simpson (1811-70) for his introduction of chloroform anesthesia in midwifery": Quote: Despite repeated claims of clerical harassment, the evidence is almost nonexistent. Insofar as there was any conflict, it was between the London and Edinburgh medical establishments or between obstetricians and surgeons. The origins of that myth may be located in an inadequately documented footnote in White[.]”

[1] http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t...

[rainbowmverse]

>> It’s become fashionable to take potshots at Christianity, justified or otherwise.

Taking potshots at powerful ideologies, especially those with domineering factions, has always been in fashion.