I think I get your point, and can relate to it to some extent. However...

Before the introduction of chloroform the best/only widely available kind of anesthesia was hard liquor, which was used very commonly. Unfortunately, it's not particularly effective for the purpose and hence many advanced surgical procedures were either extremely painful or impossible to pull off with any chance of success.

I don't think you can perform open-heart surgery or anything like it without proper anesthesia and life support equipment in the first place, neither of which existed in 19th century. Even today, no military field hospital with limited equipment and supplies could do that sort of thing, it requires top notch medical facilities.

However, if you do have the privilege of modern healthcare at hand I think it would be pretty hardcore to deliberately turn down say, open-heart surgery that could save your life simply because you can't bear the pain (which you're not going to feel anyway) of the operation being performed on you while you're out cold.

YMMV for sure, I have no axe to grind one way or another. But this much I know - most people are willing to take far greater pain and risk for the chance of living a little longer.