First use of thiopental in obstetric anaesthesia

Surprisingly, Lucas and Yentis assert that the “use of thiopental in obstetric anaesthesia was first described by Hamer Hodges in 1959. . .” [1]. Perusal of the reference list of the Hamer Hodges paper reveals that thiopental for caesarean section was already well established by then [2]. Amongst the references is a paper from Northern Ireland by Bingham, published in Anaesthesia in 1957, which clearly describes the use of balanced anaesthesia for 614 caesarean sections performed between 1948 and 1956 [3].