Tag: Anesthesia
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Surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, and pain
Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Pain caused by surgical interventions is incorrectly considered an unimportant, self-limiting inconvenience. “Let them scream—it is a relief of nature,” said Benjamin Winslow Dudley, a professor of anatomy, surgery and medicine at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky from 1817 to 1850. If Dudley’s unanesthetized patients squirmed during an operation, he would…
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Hanaoka Seishū, inventor of an early general anesthetic
Kingston BridgesLondon, United Kingdom Since time immemorial, humans have sought to alleviate illness and suffering through surgical interventions. Amputations with improvised tools took place in the Upper Paleolithic period over 30,000 years ago, and skeletal evidence of trephining has been found in excavations on several continents. Throughout the centuries, as an understanding of the human…
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William Webster, the first modern Canadian academic anesthesiologist
Kush PatelAjax, Canada Until the early twentieth century, anesthetics were a black box, and even though ether and chloroform were commonly used, their physiological effects were little known and felt nothing short of wizardry.1 No wonder Dr. John Warren cried “this is no humbug!” on seeing a patient open his eyes for the first time…
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“My dear neoplasm:” Sigmund Freud’s oral cancer
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United states When the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, died in London early on the morning of September 23, 1939, he succumbed to what he wryly referred to as “my dear old cancer with which I have been sharing my existence for sixteen years.” Freud had been discovered to have carcinoma…
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Hans Christian Andersen, James Young Simpson, and ether frolics
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In May 1847, the widely admired writer of literary fairy tales and stories Hans Christian Andersen (Fig 1) left Copenhagen on a tour of Germany and Holland and arrived in London on June 23. There he was enthusiastically received by Joseph Hambro, a Danish entrepreneur, banker, whom he knew from…
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Pain versus survival
Marissa ArmoogamTrinidad & Tobago, West Indies Pain has long been a given in any surgical procedure, but thanks to the many advances in medicine and particularly in anesthesia, the experience of insurmountable pain has been greatly quelled. There have been, however, cases when men or women have been thrown into the all-consuming grasp of pain…
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The “Ether Controversy”
JMS PearceHull, England, UK Anesthesia is one of the most humane and effective advances of all medical practices. The name commonly attached to the first general anesthetic, given on 16 October 1846, is that of the dental surgeon William TG Morton, who at the Massachusetts General Hospital successfully demonstrated ether anesthesia (vide infra). The well-known…
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Rage against the machine
Kaitlin KanVillanova, Pennsylvania, United States It was almost as if the neuromodulation clinic was the machine itself. The entire ward was U-shaped, with each arm housing preparation and recovery and the treatment suite nestled in the middle. Each patient was scheduled to the moment; nurses were on a constant cycle of ushering in and wheeling…
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George Crile Sr., founder of the Cleveland Clinic
Early days George Crile was an exceptional man, a skilled surgeon who lived at a time when American medicine was emerging from its horse and buggy period and was embracing the principles of aseptic surgery and scientific medicine. Always full of new ideas, he was first to carry out a human-to-human blood transfusion. He made…
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Crawford W. Long, first use of ether anesthesia
Crawford Williamson Long (1815–1878) is best known for his first use of ether as an anesthetic. He graduated from medical school in Pennsylvania and walked the hospitals in New York. He then returned home to set up practice in Jefferson, Georgia, a village some 140 miles from a railroad, where professional visits were made on…