Miss Raypole's glib voice continued to press upon his ears; but, by keeping his eyes fixed upon the twisting button he had accomplished a kind of self-hypnosis, or mental anaesthesia, and was but dimly aware of what went on about him.
"Penrod and Sam"
Booth Tarkington
Nitrogen monoxide or protoxide, the nitrous oxide of dentists, when inhaled, produces insensibility to pain,- anaesthesia,- and, if continued, death from suffocation.
"An Introduction to Chemical Science"
R.P. Williams
Miss Lyston's protest having lasted the whole of the preceeding night, and not at all concluding with Mr. Surbilt's departure, about breakfast-time, avowedly to seek total anaesthesia by means of a long list of liquors, which he named, she had spent the hours before rehearsal interviewing female acquaintances who had been members of the susceptible lady's company-a proceeding which indicates that she deliberately courted hysteria.
"Harlequin and Columbine"
Booth Tarkington