image by: vintagelove67

HWN Suggests

A short history of anaesthesia: from unspeakable agony to unlocking consciousness

We expect to feel no pain during surgery or at least to have no memory of the procedure. But it wasn’t always so.

Until the discovery of general anaesthesia in the middle of the 19th century, surgery was performed only as a last and desperate resort. Conscious and without pain relief, it was beset with unimaginable terror, unspeakable agony and considerable risk.

Not surprisingly, few chose to write about their experience in case it reawakened suppressed memories of a necessary torture.

One of the most well-known and vivid records of this “terror that surpasses all description” was by Fanny Burney, a popular English novelist, who on the morning of September…

read full article

Articles of Interest

Ether day: an intriguing history

“Ether Day,” Friday 16 October 1846 marks the first successful demonstration of the inhalation of ether vapour as a means of overcoming pain of surgery by the dentist William Thomas Green Morton (1819–1868) at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston USA. Morton did not “discover” anaesthesia, nor was he the first person who attempted to relieve surgical pain by administering ether or any other drug by inhalation route. But he was the first person who with personal inspiration and conviction effectively administered the right agent, before the right audience, in the right place, at the right moment in history and ensured that the news of his success spread all over the world.

Historical Anaesthetic Equipment

I have a photocopy of the anaesthetic part of the Allen & Hanburys Ltd catalogue entitled "A Reference List of Surgical Instruments and Medical Appliances, Orthopaedic and Deformity Apparatus, Hospital Furniture and Equipment, Electro-Medical and Surgical Apparatus, etc.", dated 1930.

History of Chloroform Anesthesia

The first narcosis with chloroform was performed by James Young Simpson on himself on November 4, 1847. The chemical substance had been first produced in 1831 almost simultaneously in the USA by Samuel Guthrie and in France by Eugene Soubeiran. Knowledge of the narcotic effect of chloroform spread rapidly, but very soon reports of sudden deaths mounted.

The History of Anesthesia

The first recorded use of anesthesia goes back to the ancient Incas; shamans got coked-up chewing cocoa leaves and drilled holes in the heads of their patients (to let the bad spirits escape) while spitting into the wounds they'd inflicted. The coke-resin-spittle substance numbed the site allowing hours of drilling, not to mention singing and dancing. The bad humors were known to escape and move to cooler climates.

Resources

Anesthesia History Association

The First International Symposium on Modern Anesthesia History was held in Rotterdam in 1982. At that meeting, several members of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) discussed the possible organization of an anesthesia history society in the U. S. Following up on this, a group of 47 met on October 25, 1982, at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

History of Anaesthesia Society

The Society has supported various projects connected with the history of anaesthesia. It funded the restoration of the gravestone of Sir Frederic Hewitt and has contributed towards the restoration of the Simpson grave in Edinburgh. Donations have been made in connection with the Hickman exhibition in Ludlow, and to the Erasmus Darwin museum in Lichfield.

JohnPowell.net

This is the website of a lovable but slightly eccentric Englishman (says my son Tim). If I'm not star-gazing in the dead of night or pottering along winding canals with Isabel on our narrowboat, I'm at home endlessly revising my autobiography-cum-history of anaesthesia.

Wood Library Museum of Anesthesiology

The Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM) ranks among the world's premier collections devoted to anesthesia history. Housed in the headquarters building of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, the WLM also serves as an active, specialized medical library.