obtund

Meanwhile, The Concise Oxford Dictionary says to obtund is "to blunt or deaden".

In the same way, the obtunding of the nerve cells in the cortex by anaesthetics or of the conducting nerve apparatus on the way to the brain by local anaesthesia, will have a like effect.

In men of genius the moral sense is sometimes obtunded, if not altogether absent.

Madeira did not seem to be unconscious, but his senses were obtunded, and it was some minutes before he could sit up.

Daily contact with vice obtunds their first abhorrence of it.