Anesthetics

Even during ancient times, physicians searched for anesthetics-ways to dull the pain of surgery. Opium, alcohol, and mandrake root were given orally, but their effectiveness was limited. Often, doses were so large that the patient died-not from the operation but from the drugs.

In 1800, Humphry Davy noticed that inhaling nitrous oxide relieves pain-and provokes laughter. He called it “laughing gas” and suggested that it might be useful during surgery. In 1815, Davy’s pupil Michael Faraday discovered that ether has a similar effect on pain.

The first use of a gas as an anesthetic during surgery occured in 1842; Crawford Long [American: 1815 - 1878] painlessly removed a tumor from a patient’s neck after the patient sniffed a towel dampened with ether. The first public demonstration of ether anesthesia, by William Thomas Green Morton [American: 1819 - 1868], took place before a group of surgeons in 1844.

Nitrous oxide and ether continue to be used, but scientists have discovered many additional anesthetics including the widely used sodium thiopenthal, halothane, and trichlorethylene. Some anesthetics are administered by masks, as the patient breathes; others are given intravenously or applied to the skin to block sensation in a localized part of the body.