Who discovered the first anesthetic, helping humanity get rid of the fear of surgery? – Life Health

One of the most remarkable milestones and achievements of medicine was the discovery of anesthesia.

The original anesthetic can be traced back to antiquity (the Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, and Incas). One of the first documents in Europe dates back to the 1200s, when Theodoric of Lucca, an Italian physician and bishop, used sponges soaked in opium and mandragora to relieve surgical pain. Cannabis and Indian hemp are also commonly used as pain relievers.

However, until the mid-1800s, surgeons could not provide patients with much opium or alcohol to cope with the pain of surgery.

The first surgical procedure using anesthesia

In 1846, one of mankind’s greatest fears – the pain of surgery was officially eliminated. The elements of anesthesia at that time included gases, masks, intravenous drugs, etc., discovered by a number of outstanding doctors during the two centuries.

Among them, the most prominent name among all other names when it comes to anesthetic drugs, laying the foundation for modern anesthetic methods, is William TG Morton (1819-1868). He is a dentist and doctor in Boston, USA. At the time, he was trying to find a better substance than what dentists were using, nitrous oxide.

William TG Morton.

William TG Morton and renowned Massachusetts General Hospital surgeon John Collins Warren (1778-1856) made history on October 16, 1846, with the first successful surgery performed. with anesthetic gas ether.

Accordingly, on October 16, 1846, William TG Morton used sulfuric ether to anesthetize a man who needed surgery to remove a vascular tumor in his neck.

William TG Morton called his anesthetic Leteon, named after the river Lethe in Greek mythology. The water of this river is noted to be able to help erase painful memories.

He started buying ether from a local chemist and exposed his pets to ether gas first. After confirming its safety, he tested it on his dental patients. Before long, many people with toothaches were spending thousands of dollars to have their teeth treated at his clinic.

He was pleased with his success but quickly realized that Leteon could be much better put to use than a tooth extraction.

Some historical records say, William TG Morton hoped to make a lot of money from his “discovery”. But before that, he encountered many difficulties with anesthetic gas. He worked with another dentist named Horace Wells.

In 1845, just a year before the first successful surgery with anesthetic ether gas, Morton and Wells experimented with nitrous oxide. During a notorious demonstration at Harvard Medical School in 1845, two people failed to relieve the pain of a subject whose tooth had been extracted. This caused the two to receive a lot of insults from everyone.

In 1844, William TG Morton listened to a lecture by Harvard chemistry professor Charles Jackson on how the sulfuric ether organic solvent could render a person unconscious or even insensitive. He experimented and succeeded, laying the groundwork for today’s modern anesthetic ether gas.

William TG Morton proved to the world that ether is a gas that, when inhaled in appropriate doses, can safely and effectively induce general airway anesthesia.

Milestones in the history of anesthesia

– 1847

In Scotland in 1847, professor of obstetrics and gynecology James Y. Simpson began giving women chloroform to ease the pain of childbirth. Chloroform was discovered in 1831 by Samuel Guthrie in America, Eugène Soubeiran in France and Justus von Liebig in Germany.

– 1853 & 1857

Anesthesiologist John Snow (1813-1858) used the popular obstetric anesthesia chloroforming for Queen Victoria when Prince Leopold (1853) and Princess Beatrice (1857) were born. His books on Ether and Chloroform and other anesthetics have enlightened many physicians.

– 1863

Professor Gardner Quincy Colton (1814-1898) of the Cooper Institute in New York reintroduced the anesthetic gas nitrous oxide.

– 1856

The Chicago physician Edmund Andrews (1824-1904) proposed the use of nitrous oxide mixed with oxygen as an anesthetic in the Chicago Medical Examination.

– 1884

Doctor Karl Koller (1857-1944) and colleague of Sigmund Freud introduced cocaine as an anesthetic during eye surgery.

– 1914

Dr. Dennis E. Jackson developed an anesthetic system that absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2), which allows the patient to re-breathe exhaled air containing the anesthetic, resulting in less anesthetic use and less waste fee.

– 1956

Dr. Michael Johnstone in the UK clinically introduces halothane, a general anesthetic.

– 1960

Joseph Artusio, Alan van Poznak and colleagues began human trials of the inhaled anesthetic methoxyflurane.

– 1972

Isoflurane was introduced clinically as an inhalation anesthetic.