The Evolution of the Anesthesia Machine

Abstract

On October 16, 1846, medical science, and the world, learned that the pain caused by surgical operations had been conquered. Mankind now possessed a potion so pow­ erful, that a soul entranced by its fumes paid no mind to the horror that was sur­ gery in that age. That first demonstration taught another, more subtle lesson to those who would pursue this newly created medi­ cal art: to harness the properties of this potent liquor, to deliberately poison a person's breath and to alter the conscious­ ness of that living being would require a clever instrument of some precision. From that day forward, anesthetists have em­ ployed a variety of devices to deliver the gases and vapors of anesthesia to their pa­ tients. The modern anesthesia machine is a collection of components whose inven­ tion and refinement parallel the history of anesthesia practice and whose lineage can be traced back to that October morning in Boston one hundred and fifty years ago. The demonstration was set to begin this morning, bu t William Thomas Green Morton was in danger of being late. He was working feverishly on an instrument with which to administer the secret compound, so that he could claim as his own the break­ through that had eluded medicine for cen­ turies. He remembered vividly the failed attempt by his one-time partnel� Horace Wells, to make public a similar discovery, and vowed not to suffer the same humilia­ tion. As the time grew near, he continued to assemble what was to become the first working anesthesia inhaler in history. The appointed hour had come and passed, and now IS minutes late, Dr. Morton arrived in the operating theater j ust in time to stop the surgeon from cutting skin. It was the last-minute work on the inhaler that made him late, but it was that same inhaler that helped him announce to the world that a new era of medical practice had begun. Morton's ether inhaler was a two-necked glass globe that was stuffed with a few small sponges soaked with ether. It was a simple draw-over vaporizer, with a short non­ rebreathing mouthpiece, and an inlet for fresh atmospheric gas flow. This basic de­ sign was widely copied and modified, as the accounts of his amazing discovery spread across the globe. William Morton not only introduced the concept of surgical anesthesia, but also created the prede­ cessor of all anesthesia machines to fol­ low. The journey from this modest begin­ ning to the state-of-the-art computerized anesthesia workstations of today was com­ pleted in three stages, the first of which was the era of inhalers.