Anesthesia

Anesthesia (American English), also anaesthesia (British English), is the process of blocking the perception of pain and other sensations. This allows patients to undergo surgery and other procedures without the distress and pain they would otherwise experience.

History

Non-pharmacological methods

Hypnotism and acupuncture have a long history of use as anaesthetic techniques. In China, Taoist medical practitioners developed anaesthesia by means of acupuncture. Chilling tissue with ice can achieve local effects, while hyperventilation can provide general effects (see Lamase).

Related Topics:
Hypnotism - Acupuncture - China - Taoist - Ice - Hyperventilation - Lamase

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Herbal derivatives

The first herbal anaesthesia was administered in prehistory. Opium and hemp were two of the most important herbs used. They were ingested or burned and the smoke inhaled. Alcohol was also used, its vasodilatory properties being unknown. In South America preparations from datura, effectively scopolamine, were used as was coca. In Medieval Europe various preparations of mandrake were tried as was henbane (hyoscyamine).

Related Topics:
Herbal - Prehistory - Opium - Hemp - Alcohol - Scopolamine - Coca - Mandrake - Henbane - Hyoscyamine

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Early gases and vapours

The development of effective anaesthetics in the 19th century was, with Listerian techniques, one of the keys to successful surgery. Henry Hill Hickman experimented with carbon dioxide in the 1820s. The anaesthetic qualities of nitrous oxide (isolated by Joseph Priestley) were discovered by the British chemist Humphry Davy about 1795 when he was an assistant to Thomas Beddoes, and reported in a paper in 1800. But initially the medical uses of this so-called "laughing gas" were limited - its main role was in entertainment. It was used in December 1844 for painless tooth extraction by American dentist Horace Wells. Demonstrating it the following year, at Massachusetts General Hospital, he made a mistake and the patient suffered considerable pain. This lost Wells any support.

Related Topics:
Henry Hill Hickman - Carbon dioxide - 1820s - Nitrous oxide - Joseph Priestley - Humphry Davy - 1795 - Thomas Beddoes - 1800 - 1844 - Dentist - Horace Wells

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Another dentist, William E. Clarke, performed an extraction in January 1842 using a different chemical, sulfuric ether (discovered in 1540). In March 1842 in Danielsville, Georgia, Dr. Crawford Williamson Long was the first to use anaesthesia during an operation, giving it to a boy before excising a cyst from his neck; however, he did not publicize this information until later.

Related Topics:
William E. Clarke - 1842 - Ether - 1540 - Danielsville, Georgia - Crawford Williamson Long

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On the 16th of October 1846, another dentist, William Thomas Green Morton, invited to the Massachusetts General Hospital, performed the first public demonstration of sulfuric ether as an anesthetic agent, for a patient undergoing an excision of a tumour from his neck. In a letter to Morton shortly thereafter, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. proposed naming the procedure anæsthesia.

Related Topics:
1846 - William Thomas Green Morton - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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Despite Morton's efforts to keep "his" compound a secret, which he named "Letheon" and for which he received a US patent, the news of the discovery and the nature of the compound spread very quickly to Europe in late 1846. Here, respected surgeons, including Liston, Dieffenbach, Pirogoff, and Syme undertook numerous operations with ether.

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Ether had a number of drawbacks like its tendency to induce vomiting and its flammability. In England it was quickly replaced with chloroform. Discovered in 1831, its use in anaesthesia is usually linked to James Young Simpson, who, in a wide-ranging study of organic compounds, found chloroform's efficacy in 1847. Its use spread quickly and gained royal approval in 1853 when John Snow gave it to Queen Victoria during the birth of Prince Leopold.

Related Topics:
Vomiting - Flammability - Chloroform - 1831 - James Young Simpson - 1847 - 1853 - John Snow

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The surgical amphitheater at Massachusetts General Hospital, or "etherdome" still exists today, although it is used for lectures and not surgery. The public can visit the amphitheater on weekdays when it is not in use.

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