A brief history of anesthesia
The word ‘surgery’ can give to a bit tensions. But, can you imagine a tooth picked or tumour operated without even the help of a local anesthesia? You will be surprised to know even brain surgeries were conducted successfully during Bronze Age. You may wonder how body parts were operated that time. The patients were given alcohol or drugs till they loss their consciousness. Then, they were tied to a bed and hold by 5-10 people while their body parts were dissected. Even if, patient regains his consciousness, he can’t even move till the whole process is finished. Chinese traveler Fa Hien has described about such fearful operations in his travel notes. But now, Anesthesia can keep patients away from all such teasing and help doctors to complete surgery successfully without any disturbance.
First operation using Anesthesia
The word ‘Anesthesia’ was derived from a Greek word ‘Anesthesia’ meaning, without sensation. Ether, developed by Cordas in 1640 and Nitrous oxide found by Priesty in 1777 paved way to the discovery of Anesthesia. At the beginning of 19th century, a Jordan doctor named Crawford Long found the miraculous power of ether to make sleep animals for a fixed time. But, no one co-operated with him for further researches as society was against such chemicals, because superstitious people believed that it’s God’s will to give such pains to clean souls and no one can disturb nature’s order. But his student Jayes Venabil agreed to remove tumour of his neck using ether as anesthesia. Thus, first surgery using Anesthesia was conducted secretly in 1840 March 30. Though it was success, neither of them got the courage to tell the whole world about it.
Brave doctor
First doctor who put the courage to tell the whole world about a surgery using Anesthesia was a dentist Horace Wells. His experiment was using Nitrous oxide gas. As an experiment, he inhaled Nitrous oxide in an open crowd and asked people around him to wound him. Even after blood flooding all over the body, he declared that he was not feeling pain. But people laughed at him saying he was a magician. He was the first person to use Nitrous oxide as anesthesia in the year 1844. Later he found that Chloroform can be used for this purpose. Later, his students – Charles Jackson and William Mortan popularized surgeries using Anastasia.
Now, though technology has advanced forward and solutions to many diseases are found, new ones are raising everyday and surgery is just a common practice now everywhere. So, it’s impossible to do a surgery without using Anesthesia. Now, in addition to ether and nitrous oxide, Cyclo propane, Halothyne and Isoflourine are also widely used.
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