spinal anesthesia

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Partial or complete anesthesia produced by injecting an anesthetic into the spinal canal.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun anesthesia of the lower half of the body; caused by injury to the spinal cord or by injecting an anesthetic beneath the arachnoid membrane that surrounds the spinal cord