There was no 'forbidding' from any official Protestant denominations. What opposition there was, centred on its use in Obstetrics and came primarily from within the medical community. According to the abstract of the article Early Opposition to Obstetric Anaesthesia1:
Some of the arguments used to oppose the introduction of inhalation anaesthesia - especially in obstetrics - are considered. These arguments were mainly based upon a desire to retain the sensation of pain, either as a factor necessary for survival or as a diagnostic aid: moral arguments were also adduced but religious opposition is no more than a myth of historiography. The opposition to anaesthesia lasted for less than 15 years and is seen as essentially a reflection of contemporary views on the role of pain. [emphasis added]
This assertion is justified within the article itself as follows:
Religious objections
In
addition
to
medical
and
moral arguments
it
has often
been alleged
that
opposition
to
anaesthesia
was
raised
upon
religious
grounds.
However, despite widespread references
by
20th
century
commentators
to
religious
attacks
upon
anaesthesia,
especially
in
obstetrics,
evidence
of
any such
attack
in
contemporary
writings
is
singularly sparse.
In December
1847
Professor
James Young
Simpson published
a
pamphlet entitled
Answer
to
the
Religious
Objections
Advanced
Against the
Employment of Anaesthetic
Agents
in
Midwifery
and
Surgery33
and
it
is
this
which
appears
to
have
caught
the
attention - and
imagination - of
subsequent
commentators.
In
this
pamphlet Simpson
considered
the
assertion
that the
use
of
obstetric
anaesthesia
was
a
breach
of
the
‘primeval curse’
enunciated in Genesis
3,
vl6 - "in
sorrow
thou
shalt bring
forth
children" - and
with
a
clever
use
of
logic
and
philosophy sought
to
establish
that
the
use
of
anaesthesia
during
childbirth did
not
actually breach Holy writ.
In
fact,
as a
recent exhaustive study
of
the
contemporary
medical, theological
and
lay
literature has
revealed,
up
until
that date
no such
assertions had
been
publicly
made,
nor is there
any
evidence of
such
views
being
held
privately
by
any
more than a
small
handful
of
individuals.34
It
has
also
become
clear
that
all subsequent comments
about
the religious propriety of
obstetric
anaesthesia arose
as
a
result
of
the publication
of
Simpson’s
pamphlet,
and
generally referred
directly
to
it.
Indeed, Simpson
himself
wrote only
7 months later
that
"Here,
in
Edinburgh,
I
never
now
meet
with any objections
on
this
point, for
the
religious,
like
the other forms
of opposition to
chloroform,
have
ceased
among
us".35
It
may also
be
noted
that
the
only two contemporary theologians
of
note
who
were
consulted
on
the
issue
did not consider
there
was
any
ground for
religious objections
to
anaesthesia.
Thomas
Chalmers
(1780-1847),
possibly
the
greatest
of
19th century Scottish churchmen,
regarded
the
issue
as
one
for
"small
theologians"
who,
if
they entertained such objections, would
thus
be
taking
"an
improper
view
of
the
subject".33
George
Rapall Noyes
(1798-1868),
Professor
of
Hebrew
and
Oriental
languages
and
Lecturer
in
Bibilical
literature and
theology
at
Harvard
Divinity School,
has
been described
in
the
Dictionary
of
American Biography
as
"one of
the
ablest
Biblical
scholars
of
his
day".
His
view,
expressed in
1848,
was
that
"God
could
not
have
intended,
by
any thing in
the
Scriptures,
to
oppose
the
development
of
any
of
the
laws of
nature;
which
are
his
own laws.
The
application
of
the
agents
of
nature,
by
human
ingenuity,
to
the
relief
of
pain,
is
also
the
use
of
God-given
means
by
God-given powers.
How,
then, can
such
a
course
be
irreconcilable with any
intimations
of
the
divine
will
whatever?".36
It
is
almost certain
that
Simpson’s pamphlet
Answer
to
the Religious Objections.
.
.
was
written
to
forestall objections which, in
the
event, did
not
arise,
and that
its
publication
has
subsequently
been
mis-interpreted
by
other
commentators as
evidence
for a
non-existent
opposition. Personal
reservations
about
anaesthesia
upon
religious
grounds
were
certainly felt, but the
lack
of
evidence - either
for theological opposition
to
anaesthesia from
the
institutional
churches
or
of
any
widely
held
(or expressed)
opposition
on
the
part
of
individuals - is
too
significant
to
be
discounted. It
must
be
concluded
that
there
never
was
any
formal
‘conflict’ between
religion
and
science
at
this
point,
and that
the
whole
episode
is
no
more
than an
artifact
of
historiography34.
...
33.
SIMPSON
JY.
Answer to
the
Religious Objections
Advanced Against
the
Employment of
Anaesthetic
Agents
in
Midwifery
and
Surgery.
Edinburgh:
Sutherland
&
Knox,
1847.
34.
FARR
AD.
Medical Developments
and
Religious
Beliefs. with Special Reference
to
Europe
in
the 18th
and
19th
Centuries.
Open University, Ph.D.thesis,
1977.
35.
SIMPSON
JY.
(Letter
to
Dr
Protheroe Smith
of
London, dated 8th July
1848.)In:
SmithP.
Scriptural
Authority
for
the
Mitigation
of the Pains
of
Labour
by
Chloroform
and
Other Anaesthetic
Agents.
London:
S.
Highley,
1848: 43-52.
36.
NOYES
GR.
Letter to Prof.
W.
Channing, dated 3rd
February
1848.
In:
Channing
W.
A
Treatise
in
Etherization
in
Childbirth.
Boston:
Ticknor,
1848:
145.
1. A.D. Farr, Early Opposition to Obstetric Anaesthesia [in Anaesthesia, the Journal of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 35, Issue 9, pages 896–907, September 1980]