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Imagine being operated on without anaesthesia during Imperial Rome. Pure torture
Well, no modern anesthesia. If you were lucky, you'd get powdered opium dissolved in wine. Less lucky, and you'd get some small dose of nightshade dissolved in wine. Unpleasant, but at least you'd be unconscious, and (probably) wake up again, eventually.
Of course, if you were being operated on in emergency circumstances, or as some poor farmer in the middle of nowhere getting a visit from a city doctor, you might very well end up with nothing at all.