Discovery of intravenous anesthesia ON THE 110TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST INTRAVENOUS HEDONAL ANESTHESIA)

Abstract

After the discovery of ether anesthesia, its shortcomings quickly revealed: it was impossible to maintain anesthesia when a surgeon worked on the head or neck, these operations were impossible or very difficult to carry out under ether anesthesia. The suffocating feeling after inhaling the first portions of the ether pushed patients away from repeated operations under ether anesthesia. The use of chloroform instead of ether revealed its small therapeutic breadth, several deaths occurred in different countries from chloroform in people with heart disease. Attempts to use chloroform and ether intravenously revealed the thrombogenic effect of these drugs, experimental animals and even patients died from pulmonary embolism. The first safe drug for intravenous anesthesia, hedonal, was invented in Strasbourg in 1889 under the direction of Oswald Schmiedeberg. The drug entered the physiological laboratories of many countries, including Russia, and the laboratory of Professor N.P. Kravkova, Head of the Department of Pharmacology, Military Medical Academy. The drug had a strong hypnotic effect and was an ideal tool for vivisection. Given this, an assumption was made about the possibility of using hedonal in humans. This idea was supported by Professor S.P. Fedorov, Head of the Department of Hospital Surgery, Military Medical Academy. A comprehensive study of the hedonal was carried out during the years 1908-1909 by the intern of the hospital surgery clinic Alexander Porfirevich Jeremic. On December 7, 1909, the first ever operation was performed under intravenous hedonal anesthesia, which was called «Russian anesthesia» abroad.