Fifty Years of Anesthesia

Abstract

NESTHESIA was foreshadowed by A the discovery of ether, by an ItaIian, VaIerius Cordus, in 1540, three centuries before its anesthetic properties were discovered. Oxygen and nitrous oxide were discovered by an English cIergyman and scientist, Priestly, in 1774, over seventy years before their use in surgery. Von Liebig, in Germany, SamueI Gutherie, in America, and Souberan, in France, independentIy, discovered chIoroform in I 83 I, sixteen years before its use as an anesthetic. Henry Hi11 Hickman, an English surgeon, in 1820 to 1828, made successful experiments upon Iower animals, rendering them insensibIe to pain, by the inhalation of nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide and the exclusion of air, and then proved insensibiIity to pain by performing various minor operations on these animals, but his work was treated with skepticism and scorn and he was not allowed to test his theories upon human beings. The discovery of the anesthetic properties of ether and nitrous oxide was made by observations of a doctor (Long) and a dentist (WeIIs). They proved that ether and nitrous oxide when inhaIed to a point of intoxication, at “Ether FroIics” or “ChemicaI Lectures,” the human subjects were unaware of bruises or painfu1 spots received while in a semi-intoxicated stage. Dr. Crawford W. Long, of Georgia, in 1842, was the first to use any drug (ether) in a surgical operation, to render the patient insensibIe to pain.*